auto vs. manual loading zone, which one?

[Liz C]

From my experience it seemed like the majority of teams seemed to favor the human loading station over the auto loader. Granted some of the robots were not capable of using the auto, but it seemed like it was used a lot less frequent than planned. From time to time, I also noticed robots were simply just waiting to get onto the human loading zone, when the auto's were open.

We were quite capable of using the auto loader, but we had trouble getting up on even that small piece of wood (due to the front omni wheels) I would try to go fast to get onto the triangle, and I always ended up knocking the tetra down with the force of the robot crashing into the side.

My questions are
which one did your team use the most and why?
also, if anyone had omni, or "wonder", wheels in the front, did you encounter the problem of getting onto the zone?

[Jeff Rodriguez]

We tend to use the auto load station for that reason. Many teams use the HP station better, so we work out of the auto load station and stay out of their way.
Also, is it quicker for us to use the auto load station. The HP station just takes too much time.

[dubious elise]

Our driver, Eric, can do both human and auto-loading very well, however, its considerably quicker for him to use the human loader primarily because it doesn't require quite as much precision

Ive actually noticed that there has been quite a variety of which one to go to...

111, 45, 108, and 65 seemed that they only used the auto loader (and did it all very well) at midwest

whereas someone like 71 went to the human player several times.

Personally we use the manual loader, but have pulled a few off an auto loader. The way our pneumatic arm is designed, we dont get the maximum height needed to cap with a few tetras on the goal already if we go to the auto loader.


We might try a little auto loading in Atlanta

[Allison K]

We are capable of using the both, although I did prefer the human player bcause there was less precision involved in lining up.

Generally I sent the driver to whichever loader was closest to the goal I intented them to score on.

[xzvrw2]

My team, 65, uses the auto loader for a couple of reasons. (1) for our strategy right now its really quick (2) not a lot of teams use it so we will always have one open and (3) with our skewer right now thats the only place we can pick up from (with the skewer we don't have to be too precise...all we have to do is be on the triangle and be some where in the area of the middle of the plane of the tetra)


It all depends on your robot in which one is better.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck

111, 45, 108, and 65 seemed that they only used the auto loader (and did it all very well) at midwest

111's design almost demands that they have exclusive access to both autoload stations. In one qualification match where we were allied with them, we used the human player to good effect. Our drive team is very fast picking up tetras from the autoloader, so that's what we preferred to use.

Maybe we'll redesign our robot before Championship to hold a stack of tetras the way 71 does, and make multiple stops at the human player station? Nah...

[JonBell]

We use an arm to pick up the tetras, and since it's driven by motors instead of pneumatics, if we use the manual loader, then when the tetra is placed on the arm, the arm will fall down (since there's no power being applied to keep it up, since the robot is dissabled), and the tetra will fall off. Auto works fine for us as long as the field attendents are on the ball and keep refilling the loader.

[Goobergunch]

The Friarbot has a pneumatically-powered claw that opens and closes. In competition, we exclusively used the automatic loading station, opening the claw to grab a tetra and then closing it again to withdraw. I don't know quite how a human could put a tetra on our (opened) claw with the robot disabled - it would probably be possible, but we've never tried.

[Lil' Lavery]

It is possible for us to use the auto loader, but it require far too much time and precision to aim correctly as to not hit the tetra b4 entering the loading zone. We can enter the zones with ease now though (with our omni wheels too!), so the human zone isnt too much of a problem. But if we're not careful, we can have a bit of trouble getting off, as the wood is just enough of a hieght difference that it can cause one of our wheels to loose contact with the floor and spin out. But shims helped all but solve that problem.
Teams that can use the auto loader quickly tend to do so, because it is generally faster and less crowded. But many teams cannot use it reliably and/or quickly, so they choose to use the human instead.

[SteveO]

We use solely the autoloader, if you watch the Las Vegas Regional on NASA you can see We chose this because our robot is disabled for at least 3 seconds even if Michael Johnson is our human player. So instead, we use an anvil as our human player (Ian) and have many different software feedback sources to ensure our arm grabs from the auto loader fast.

[Rombus]

1278's major problem was our arms design, We used a center mounted 4 stage continuous forklift style lift. Due to design issues we just could not get the first section to come down. Our strategy was to start near the autoloader, use it once, get one quick cap then use the auto loader

[slickguy2007]

We work around our alliance partners, but I prefer the auto tetra loader.


GO 1403!!!

[Ian Curtis]

We could use both stations. We primarily used the human player becuase the human player could put them on our base. We used the autoloader a few times but it usually wasn't worth it.

[Denman]

we had the problem that we couldn't use the human zone because hte arm wieghs too much and juts falls down as soon as the power is cut...
so Auto here!