[2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...

[19lmyers]

After analyzing how scouts would potentially go about tracking a robot's fuel scoring ability, I came to the conclusion that there is virtually no way scouts will be able to make an accurate count of how many "fuel" balls are scored in the lower goal of the boiler. A cursory examination of the game leads me to believe that many robots will be scoring at this goal in bulk (think a "dump truck" robot design) that could be putting anything from ten to a hundred balls into the goal. There is no way that a scout will be able to accurately count each fuel ball that goes into the lower goal. This inexactness is a potentially scary problem that should be recognized by the greater scouting community.

How do you guys think we should adjust our scouting procedures to adjust for this potential inaccuracy?

[Joy4201]

One thing that was suggested on my team was to count cycles. How fast can a robot grab a good number of balls and dump? We also thought that we should make an estimate of the balls they have at each dump (maybe just low, medium, high).

[Chak]

Originally Posted by Joy4201

One thing that was suggested on my team was to count cycles. How fast can a robot grab a good number of balls and dump? We also thought that we should make an estimate of the balls they have at each dump (maybe just low, medium, high).

Good idea! In addition, scouts can estimate the accuracy too, and multiply that by the maximum capacity that team claims they can hold to get another reading of how many balls were scored per cycle.

I would imagine that high goal is easier to estimate than low goal though.

[AMendenhall]

could be putting anything from ten to a hundred balls into the goal.

If you filled the entire volume of your robot with spheres, you'd only be able to fit 50 spheres in your robot. Proof:

Maximum volume of robot, M=34,560 inches cubed.
Volume of sphere, S=4/3*PI*5^3=523.6 inches cubed
Optimum packing order of spheres, P=0.74
Maximum amount of balls in robot: M*P/S=49. Q.E.D

[Chak]

Originally Posted by AMendenhall

If you filled the entire volume of your robot with spheres, you'd only be able to fit 50 spheres in your robot. Proof:

Maximum volume of robot, M=34,560 inches cubed.
Volume of sphere, S=4/3*PI*5^3=523.6 inches cubed
Optimum packing order of spheres, P=0.74
Maximum amount of balls in robot: M*P/S=49. Q.E.D

Not quite. The diameter of the sphere is 5", so the radius is 2.5". You're off by a factor of 8.

Edit: Also, the balls are slightly squishy. In addition, you can pile a hill of balls higher than your robot max height and hold them all.

[legoguy1000]

I have been thinking about this as well. My scouting application (https://www.frcscout.resnick-tech.com), which is open for every team to utilize, just has a button for a high or low goal. I was thinking about how to do bulk scoring and I think I will just have a drop down with increments and allow users to select the number to be submitted. Please feel free to take a look and let me know.

[maxnz]

Last year FMS tracked the high and low goals in teleop separately. I don't know if that will happen again this year or if it will happen in auto too, but TBA may be helpful in this regard (you would have to note if it seems if only one or if two or more robots are scoring in the low efficiency goal, but it may be better than nothing).

[scca229]

Originally Posted by maxnz

Last year FMS tracked the high and low goals in teleop separately. I don't know if that will happen again this year or if it will happen in auto too, but TBA may be helpful in this regard (you would have to note if it seems if only one or if two or more robots are scoring in the low efficiency goal, but it may be better than nothing).

For purposes of the kPa calculation, the FMS will have to keep track of Auto/TeleOp separately since Auto fuel counts for 3 times as much pressure. Also keep in mind that the processing of the fuel for Auto stops when Auto stops and anything left in the hopper is now TeleOp fuel. At the end of the match, the same holds true when at t=0, processing stops regardless of what was still in the hopper at the time. There is no "the ball was in the air so it counts" with this game.

[legoguy1000]

Originally Posted by scca229

For purposes of the kPa calculation, the FMS will have to keep track of Auto/TeleOp separately since Auto fuel counts for 3 times as much pressure. Also keep in mind that the processing of the fuel for Auto stops when Auto stops and anything left in the hopper is now TeleOp fuel. At the end of the match, the same holds true when at t=0, processing stops regardless of what was still in the hopper at the time. There is no "the ball was in the air so it counts" with this game.

They will definitely keep track of the number of balls (fuel). The question is whether scouts will be able to determine in the moment the amount. Also the FMS does not determine which robot did what, so there is no way to determine who contributed what number of balls based on the FMS / Blue Alliance data.

[ToddF]

We'll probably make high ball scoring fall into 3 catagories:
A) Amazing!
B) Pretty good.
C) Meh.

[SteveGPage]

Originally Posted by ToddF

We'll probably make high ball scoring fall into 3 catagories:
A) Amazing!
B) Pretty good.
C) Meh.

We're going to hopefully be better than 'Meh'!

Steve

[AMendenhall]

You're right. Redo:

Maximum volume of robot, M=34,560 inches cubed.
Volume of sphere, S=4/3*PI*2.5^3=65.5 inches cubed
Optimum packing order of spheres, P=0.74
Maximum amount of balls in robot: M*P/S=391.

I revoke my skepticism about 100 balls being dumped into a goal.

[Bronze]

Originally Posted by AMendenhall

Maximum volume of robot, M=34,560 inches cubed.

Don't forget that that volume includes the bumpers... ~3.25 inches from each side of the robot that the frame perimeter must be held within. So maximally, robots themselves can actually only be 23718 cubic inches (and thats in the short orientation, its actually less in the tall orientation, at 21573 cubic inches).

Keep in mind that the random packing density is maximally 64% (optimal planned packing is higher, but thats not going to happen during a match). So we take the number of fuel that an empty space of the size that the robot could fit in to be only 231. Now consider that the robot needs electronics, a frame, wheels, and some mechanism to actually dump the balls, and I think you'd be lucky to see 100, maybe 150 ball dumps, if that's all the robot does.

Now for the discussion of scouting, we are considering the following for our electronic scouting app (that we plan to release before competitions start):

- go around before matches start and ask teams what the maximum number of fuel their robot can hold is, save that data in our app
- during match scouting, have a slider to estimate (to nearest 5 for low goal) the number of fuel scored by a robot, with a marker / upper limit just above the maximum capacity that the team reported their robot being able to score. Gives our scouters a way of visually going - "their robot looks about half full, so must be half of the number they reported", etc.

[logank013]

I've talked about this with a few other members of my team since I'm the scout guy on our team. I'm sort of at a loss. We've had "super scouters" before. It'd be 1 per alliance along with 1 per robot. That means we'll need 8 scouts a match which might be a problem for us. But I've thought about designating super scouters where their whole job is to count how many balls each team on that alliance scores in the goals. It will be really hard to count low goals but high should be fairly easy. Good thing I have 6 weeks to figure this out...

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Bronze

Don't forget that that volume includes the bumpers... ~3.25 inches from each side of the robot that the frame perimeter must be held within. So maximally, robots themselves can actually only be 23718 cubic inches (and thats in the short orientation, its actually less in the tall orientation, at 21573 cubic inches).

We're playing with unreasonable numbers either way, but I feel like I should point out that your fuel tank can indeed extend over your bumpers so long as it starts within your frame perimeter. The only mandatory volume loss is the volume of the bumpers themselves (but for that matter the battery and other required components).

In terms of scouting it, your first general pass won't need to be very specific. You might just write Low/Med/High on the forms and wait a few matches at your event to help your scouts get a feel of each and set standards based on your alliance selection needs. One of the most useful metrics will be how fast an alliance hits 40 kPa and how much (cycles and which goal) a team had to do with it. By the time specifics really matter (District and Half Champs), the community will have built up a whole jargon for handling this, and your scouts will have the benefit of experience. Too often I see teams get overwhelmed trying to collect more detail than they need or are ready for and miss the forest for the trees.