What happened in the finals at West Michigan?

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by Siri

We actually have HP indicator lights (not as cool as yours, though). And we were using them. And we were flapping our claw. And we were coming down our lane and sitting in front of the HP. And I was waving my arms like crazy.

...Perhaps what I means is, make sure your HP responds to your override signal.

we had HP lights on our robot too (little dinky one's)

came up with a really good way to debug autonomous using them though. Basically I would start with all the lights on, and knock off lights as it moved through the maneuvers, this way I could tell if the camera found the target, or the rangefinder saw the wall, stuff like that .

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Josh Fox

Though I am surprised there's no further penalty for contacting an opponents robot, like Gary mentioned above, if I were in charge of strategy for a match and a situation arose where taking a three point penalty would guarantee a team not score an ubertube, then I would almost certainly go for it.

In my opinion it's a perfectly viable strategy, though potentially quite risky/challenging. Obviously it's hard to predict where a robot will be at a given moment in autonomous mode, and then there's always the possibility of a team being able to compensate and undo whatever "damage" you're capable of doing using sensors.

Josh, this seems to be a viable strategy, though one thing has me worried. Isn't intentionally getting a penalty in order to gain some sort of strategic advantage considered Egregious Behavior and therefore subject to a yellow card under rule <T06> ?

[Josh Fox]

I think it depends on your definition of "egregious," which is, unfortunately, a very relative term.


If a team were to cross the center line and push an opponent into the wall at high speed, I'd probably call that egregious and potentially deserving of a card, especially if it did some sort of damage.

If you made an auton where your robot just knocked them off course a bit, I wouldn't be so inclined to call that egregious.


It's definitely not a very black and white issue.

[Mr. Pockets]

Is anyone else thinking that prior to St. Louis we may see a major shift towards feeder loading features? With all this talk of specific tube starvation I can definitely see the advantages of at least being able to pick-up from the human players. I mean, at a certain level of competition does it become more advantageous to not throw your tubes in interest of slowing the game and forcing lower scores? Especially against powerful scoring teams.

[MagiChau]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pockets

Is anyone else thinking that prior to St. Louis we may see a major shift towards feeder loading features? With all this talk of specific tube starvation I can definitely see the advantages of at least being able to pick-up from the human players. I mean, at a certain level of competition does it become more advantageous to not throw your tubes in interest of slowing the game and forcing lower scores? Especially against powerful scoring teams.

1114 did this at Pittsburgh. They did only human slot loading in the beginning of an elimination match so they could outmatch the other alliance in tubes hung by taking advantage of being able to cross the field faster. I heard 175 used human-slot loading mostly even though they could floor load.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pockets

Is anyone else thinking that prior to St. Louis we may see a major shift towards feeder loading features? With all this talk of specific tube starvation I can definitely see the advantages of at least being able to pick-up from the human players. I mean, at a certain level of competition does it become more advantageous to not throw your tubes in interest of slowing the game and forcing lower scores? Especially against powerful scoring teams.

It's definitely possible we'll get more tube-scarce as time goes on. Even so though, I'm not sure there's an inherent design advantage in being able to pick up from Feeders. After all, good floor loaders can get a dropped tube just as a fast as good feeder can feed. Better yet, many HPs have practiced 'punching' it down the lane to get it near the end (but still safe). Of course, if it's your opposing alliance's a top-row-ubertube completing tube, you might want to stick with the well-timed dropping/short pushing tactic.

We played completely tube-scarce in the FLR semis against 217, 2056, and 1518. It has its uses. Didn't help us a lick (we all broke, not that I'm convinced it would've mattered), but I don't regret the strategy. Flooding the field only works when you score faster. I do think long-range, good aim HPs will take most days, though.

[stuart2054]

Originally Posted by lineskier

Thanks for the insights everyone!

First off I would like to congratulate 67 and 2054 for making it onto my top 25 (based on ETC). 2054 actually taking my #2 spot.

I'm curious if anyone knows what caused the comms problems.

Great strategy Grant! It seems that defense is a (if not the) critical element in many of the finals matches.

A little late in the reply but the problem was a bad USB Hub that first reversed the joysticks and then disconnected us from the FMS

[pathew100]

Originally Posted by stuart2054

A little late in the reply but the problem was a bad USB Hub that first reversed the joysticks and then disconnected us from the FMS

Was it the little square one they send in the kit? Whenever teams have joystick problems that's the first question I ask. That thing is notorious for going bad.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by pathew100

Was it the little square one they send in the kit? Whenever teams have joystick problems that's the first question I ask. That thing is notorious for going bad.

We fortunately didn't need to use it this year. And, yes, it is not very robust (in all fairness, it wasn't ever designed to be).

[stuart2054]

Yeah, It was the little square one. We stopped using it and connect directly to a notebook computer we use as a drivers station. What do you expect for $15 part. Live and learn