Day 1 Week 1

[Andy L]

Just a few questions for everyone who have first week regionals:

What was different than expected(defense, mobility, etc.)?

Any cool designs that someone on your team thought of then you said "pfft that's cool but impossible"?

How did IR work in general?

Were lap counters reliable?

Also any little problems or things that weren't expected, like rules and things like that?

[synth3tk]

Yes, don't leave us in the dark!!! I've got three more weeks to prepare, give me the details. Photos welcome.

[Wayne C.]

As stated in our "unveiling" thread- we had two problems caused by the field today

First- the height dimension for the overpasses has been getting lower and lower. By days end the sag had them down to 76" from the floor. A number of robots, including us, want to clip the bottom of the ball just under the overpass to pop it up. So if you counted on a more or less 78" be wary because it may be way off from that. We slammed the crossbar on our first outing and spent the rest of the day trying to finagle some solution to this inconsistency.

Second- Our IR system worked flawless at home. We pointed a dozen different remote controls at it, shot it through windows, pipes, cupped hands- well you get the picture. In the pits it worked like a charm.
On the field it suddenly became erratic and lost signal. Hmmm. After an afternoon of anguish we found the culprit- that damned flag beacon. The IR system to count the laps was mounted right next to our receiver and the beacon was blasting the system. We cut power to the beacon and it worked fine. So we moved the receiver and shielded it and that seems to work fine. Thanks to 1676 for the button we formed into a beacon shield.

As for game play- picture driving at rush hour when you are in a hurry to get home. Everybody- arm or no arm- needs the walls to corner the ball. And there is fair arm to arm contact.

Everybody is velcroing their control systems to the operator station because runaway robots in autonomous are smashing the far walls and tossing the controls off the shelf.

Overall the game is not as wonderful as I would have hoped.

WC

[MrForbes]

Thanks for the info! We are used to a sagging overpass, since I made our test one out of too small of pipe....I guess our pool noodle ball knocker offer idea wasn't so flakey after all. And we have our IR receiver mounted low on the robot, but it might need some shielding.

[Branden Ghena]

What kind of shielding could you use for an IR sensor? Would plastic stop signals, or would you have to use sheet metal?

[MrForbes]

Do you have a TV? and a remote control? do some experiments!

(and let us know what you find)

[gurellia53]

Originally Posted by tawnos23

What kind of shielding could you use for an IR sensor? Would plastic stop signals, or would you have to use sheet metal?

I don't have an answer to your question, but if you want to test a material to see if IR light passes through it, take a newer video camera with nightshot and look at your remote while sending signals. Put a material you want to test between the camera and the remote annd then see if you can still see the pulses.

[Simon Strauss]

Originally Posted by gurellia53

I don't have an answer to your question, but if you want to test a material to see if IR light passes through it, take a newer video camera with nightshot and look at your remote while sending signals. Put a material you want to test between the camera and the remote annd then see if you can still see the pulses.

Another option is if you have a camera phone or really cheap digital camera you will be able to see IR pulses through it.

[lasereyes]

Before we shipped our robot, we added a layer of Lexan on the robot. It was also in front of the IR board. It worked fine, so I don't think Lexan affects an IR signal that much.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by lasereyes

Before we shipped our robot, we added a layer of Lexan on the robot. It was also in front of the IR board. It worked fine, so I don't think Lexan affects an IR signal that much.

I agree. We made a lexan case for our IR receiver and no problems receiving signal.

[Betty_Krocker]

ok now i am worried. i am a week two regional, and have some concerns. first off he have fiberglass grippers that go around the outside of the ball and i am concerned about them snapping off since people say that there is a lot of arm to arm contact. also during testing at home, we forgot to pick the wheels up off the ground when loading the program, and it shot forward (while still tethered) and we ended up herding a table! has anybody broken their arms yet...
like i said we are using fiberglass grippers that i molded, which are only 2 or 3 layers thick, with a plywood rib on the back...
does anybody think there will be a problem?

[sgreco]

Three things I noticed about game play that I didn't expect:
1. There is a lot more defense then I had anticipated, needless to say it doesn't even compare to last year.
2. All good alliances need a good shooter.(if you don't have to stop to hurdle you have a big advantage over everyone that needs to stop)
3. Hybrid mode is very important because I have seen a lot of struggling just to pass two lines. The teams that I have seen that pass 3 or more lines in hybrid consistently seem to be very successful.

[waialua359]

In sports people want excitement and want to see lots of scoring.
I think that's what made it so exciting to watch the dominating robots in 2006. This game is much different.
After watching video footage today, it looked like someone played a VCR tape and kept it on slow motion (with the exception of speedy bots)
As predicted, grabbing/grasping the ball is tough and doing it with great efficiency is just as important as scoring efficiently, if your a hurdler.
Easy for me to watch it on video,.....must be something else for the student controllers trying to play the game.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Overall the game is not as wonderful as I would have hoped.

WC

Hmm, well, it's one person's opinion so far. But thanks for the detailed update. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like it's a pretty hectic free-for-all.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Everybody is velcroing their control systems to the operator station because runaway robots in autonomous are smashing the far walls and tossing the controls off the shelf.

I very strongly recommend that everyone pay attention to this. Wildstang's control board went flying today after an exceptionally fast robot hit their driver station in hybrid mode. I know they won't be the last to experience this.