Thoughts on driving in the previous season

[lark95]

So now that is has been awhile since worlds ended i was wondering what stuck out to everybody the most drivers/driving. What were some things that could be improved or some good things that worked well.

The most important thing i noticed was during the finals at Milwaukee. All three teams in our alliance did very well together. I believe that this was due to the act that before hand we all got together talked things through and had a very good plan that we stuck to. Communication between drive teams is critical.

I for one have also realized that one muffin a few slices of pizza and unlimited supplies of Mountain Dew is not a very good diet.

[EDesbiens]

I saw a lot more communication between human players and drivers this year then the two last ones... This helped a lot, in my opinion...

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by EDesbiens

I saw a lot more communication between human players and drivers this year then the two last ones... This helped a lot, in my opinion...

Human Playing this year was much more difficult and required communication than the past two years. There wasn't much to communicate in 2013/14, but this year it made sense because of how stacking works.

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Human Playing this year was much more difficult and required communication than the past two years. There wasn't much to communicate in 2013/14, but this year it made sense because of how stacking works.

Very true

[Paperclips]

The key difference between the previous year's driving and other years of driving was primarily the style of play that was necessary. One of the most important things that Recycle Rush required was to be careful (if you didn't have something to stabilize the totes you were holding).
Our driver ended up using a control system that reflected that, one joystick for magnitude and another for direction. This ended up working well for us, overall.

Something that we originally had on the robot, but later took off was an option for field-centric driving. We ended up not using this because we discovered that it was hard to line up with the chute door using those controls.

Another thing I personally discovered was that the queuing line at Worlds is about a mile from the practice fields...

[EDesbiens]

Originally Posted by Paperclips

The key difference between the previous year's driving and other years of driving was primarily the style of play that was necessary. One of the most important things that Recycle Rush required was to be careful (if you didn't have something to stabilize the totes you were holding).
Our driver ended up using a control system that reflected that, one joystick for magnitude and another for direction. This ended up working well for us, overall.

Something that we originally had on the robot, but later took off was an option for field-centric driving. We ended up not using this because we discovered that it was hard to line up with the chute door using those controls.

Another thing I personally discovered was that the queuing line at Worlds is about a mile from the practice fields...

We should have used that control system... Its true that you get more precision then simple tank control...

(We got our human player run all the mile to our pit twice because one of our motor controller was dead )

[GeeTwo]

2015 Recycle Rush, more than any other recent game, called for cool-headed drivers. Despite the name of the game, rushing was the last thing you wanted the driver to do. Yes, move quickly and surely, but never get in a rush! Most years, taking a bit of a gamble of speed over consistency might pay off in the long run; probably not in 2015.

The only time I can think that driver aggression helped us this year was in driver tryouts. We learned that yes, our stabilizer bar could be used to flip totes (actually roll them 90 degrees at a time) when used aggressively. It didn't work when done methodically. After a bit of noggin-scratching, we added some rubber tape to the bottom of the bar so we could flip totes in a more controlled fashion. We probably wouldn't have thought the problem through if we hadn't seen it work sometimes.

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Human Playing this year was much more difficult and required communication than the past two years. There wasn't much to communicate in 2013/14, but this year it made sense because of how stacking works.

In 2014 Aerial Assist, communication (apart from hand signals) was only feasible with the HP behind the alliance wall, in any event. For the field-side HPs, there was only one ball to keep an eye on, so the HP could just follow the robots' (that is, the drivers') lead in most situations, and look to the drive coach for a hand signal when necessary.

In 2013 Ultimate Ascent, the HPs were behind the wall, but I imagine that loading stations and altitudes were all known before each match. The main thing that needed communication to the HPs were when to feed the colored frisbees, and when to start the HP frisbee launch. I imagine that some HPs had to guide their drivers in to the loading station, especially if their robot did not have an on board camera feeding back to the driver station.

[avanboekel]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

2015 Recycle Rush, more than any other recent game, called for cool-headed drivers. Despite the name of the game, rushing was the last thing you wanted the driver to do. Yes, move quickly and surely, but never get in a rush! Most years, taking a bit of a gamble of speed over consistency might pay off in the long run; probably not in 2015.

This is definately a result of the possibility to descore this season that was not present in the past. It was often more worth it to sit still for the last 10-15 seconds, especially when visibility was lowered because of the number of stacks. Trying to get an extra tote or 2 out at the last second wasn't worth the risk of knocking down multiple stacks.

[lark95]

Originally Posted by avanboekel

This is definately a result of the possibility to descore this season that was not present in the past. It was often more worth it to sit still for the last 10-15 seconds, especially when visibility was lowered because of the number of stacks. Trying to get an extra tote or 2 out at the last second wasn't worth the risk of knocking down multiple stacks.

This was definitely rue in some of the earlier qualification matches. But in the finals i didn't see nearly so much of it.

[John Retkowski]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

2015 Recycle Rush, more than any other recent game, called for cool-headed drivers. Despite the name of the game, rushing was the last thing you wanted the driver to do. Yes, move quickly and surely, but never get in a rush! Most years, taking a bit of a gamble of speed over consistency might pay off in the long run; probably not in 2015.

Originally Posted by avanboekel

This is definately a result of the possibility to descore this season that was not present in the past. It was often more worth it to sit still for the last 10-15 seconds, especially when visibility was lowered because of the number of stacks. Trying to get an extra tote or 2 out at the last second wasn't worth the risk of knocking down multiple stacks.

In addition. I feel like the virtual field space this years was smaller than many recent games. Many more game pieces that were fairly large by frc standards, paired with scoring ramps and no horizontal limit restrictions for robots resulted in a field that compared to other years felt, well... cramped.

[Connor McBride]

Originally Posted by John Retkowski

In addition. I feel like the virtual field space this years was smaller than many recent games. Many more game pieces that were fairly large by frc standards, paired with scoring ramps and no horizontal limit restrictions for robots resulted in a field that compared to other years felt, well... cramped.

I completely agree with you on this. Especially when you have big robot, there is very little room to accomplish the task.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

2015 Recycle Rush, more than any other recent game, called for cool-headed drivers.

This. Recycle Rush was one of the most unforgiving games we've ever had in FRC. One wrong move and your match score could drop by at least 40 points, sometimes more if multiple stacks went down. In previous years if you missed a shot you could simply try again - this year's game piece made that pretty much impossible. You needed to be both consistent and fast at high levels of play, but consistency was the most important.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Human Playing this year was much more difficult and required communication than the past two years. There wasn't much to communicate in 2013/14, but this year it made sense because of how stacking works.

For the most part, I agree. But depening on your robot and team played the game in 2013/2014, human playering may have required similar amounts of communication.
2013- robots that needed precise alignment with the feeder and exclusive floor pickups that were cycling required similar communication (when 20 would cycle, we'd often pick up 1-3 stray discs off the floor, then communicate to our human player to drop 1-3 more on the floor. We didn't want to drop extra discs because opponent floor pickups could pick them up.
2014- teams with flexible strategies required really good communication with their far side human players, really smart human players, or both. (10 seconds left in the match, do I throw the ball into my team's robot or the designated finisher's robot, do I inbound the ball now when my team is being t-boned or wait until they get a better angle)

The difference, I think, is that almost every team in 2015 needed to have good drive-HP communication, while in 2013 and 2014 it was only really required for a smaller subset of teams, usually teams at higher levels of play.

As for driving between the seasons- they were very different.
2015 required extreme care. Calm, cool, and collected drivers who knew exactly what the robot was capable of were necessary.
2014 required much more aggressive drivers, depending on the robot. The drivers needed to be able to understand the robot's capability and evaluate risks when driving.
2013 depended on what robot you had, again. Most drivers just needed to be agile enough to juke defenders out, then careful lining up their shots. Full court shooters generally needed to be careful and get into position, because they were often top-heavy and only needed to get there once, while floor collectors needed to move a bit slower and more carefully to carefully grab the floor discs.

I think the takeaway is that drivers need to be practiced and really know their robot inside and out regardless of year, but many requirements for drivers otherwise change year-on-year.

[Lij2015]

This would have been the best year to have a new driver because some robots needed minimal driver input, and you didn't have to drive against defense.

Also, drive coaches were only important as far as where to place stacks and read off time as unless something broke(which happened its fair share of times) your strategy didn't change on the fly much

[lark95]

Originally Posted by Lij2015

This would have been the best year to have a new driver because some robots needed minimal driver input, and you didn't have to drive against defense.

While this might have been true with a few bots, most of the bots that i saw, ours included, was a completely manual control. No autonomy at all. For our team this would have been a very bad year for a new driver.

However our team really hasn't done much in the new driver training area. With some training anyone could drive.