First Official 2012 Game Hint

[CNettles11]

Originally Posted by jgw

1972 to the present is a bit more than 20 years!

You mean that 10 years ago doesn't mean early 90's?

[Sean Raia]

Im seeing an infared photoswitch, this has the capability to tell if something has interupted the beam in light of dark environments. Why would FIRST order so many photoswitches just to do the job of a ref and look for a robot passing a line? They wouldn't.

I could see a part of the field being obstucted from view.

[CNettles11]

Originally Posted by Sean Raia

I have just been informed that the game is called Bowled Over, appearantly there was a leak on andymark. More info to come.

Bowled over is the FTC game, not the FRC game.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by rcmolloy

... a bottleneck effect like in 2010.

How about the bottlenecks in Aim High? Pokey-pokey stick anyone?

[Sean Raia]

Originally Posted by CNettles11

Bowled over is the FTC game, not the FRC game.

Ahh I realized that just after i hit post. I stand firm on my obstructed view prediction.

[CNettles11]

Originally Posted by Sean Raia

Ahh I realized that just after i hit post. I stand firm on my obstructed view prediction.

4 pound bowling balls are just dense styrofoam (Think about AndyMark's battery packing foam) wrapped in a plastic shell. Those seem like the best reason for the heavy game pieces. I'd love to have a bowling game! I still think that the way that FRC is trying to tie into FTC, it could possibly involve balls being used to knock things over.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by rcmolloy

I had mentioned this to AdamHeard yesterday. However, multiple items can be scored but have to eventually pass through the photosensors one at a time. It is very possible that this could be achieved with a bottleneck effect like in 2010. The only downside is there may be a jammage of game pieces.

I tried to find a picture of a 2006 low goal but was unable to. If memory serves me, the goal had 2-3 tunnel like structures for balls to go through, each with it's own photo sensor. Don't think I ever saw one jam up, even when 20-ish balls were dumped in at once.

2010's goals were never designed for multiple game pieces to pass through, or at least I don't think they were. It doesn't help that the memory foam made it really easy to jam two balls into the goal pretty tightly.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I tried to find a picture of a 2006 low goal but was unable to. If memory serves me, the goal had 2-3 tunnel like structures for balls to go through, each with it's own photo sensor. Don't think I ever saw one jam up, even when 20-ish balls were dumped in at once.

Single chute with a vision sensor of some form. No jamming, but you had to clear the holding pen before the balls got stuck on the sensor, otherwise they'd count again and again.

Originally Posted by EricH

Single chute with a vision sensor of some form. No jamming, but you had to clear the holding pen before the balls got stuck on the sensor, otherwise they'd count again and again.

And that's a bad thing to keep counting scores?

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

And that's a bad thing to keep counting scores?

Your opponent scored on you in 2006 (opposite of 2010). If you didn't clear the ball corral fast enough, the opponents score would keep going up.

Originally Posted by thefro526

Your opponent scored on you in 2006 (opposite of 2010). If you didn't clear the ball corral fast enough, the opponents score would keep going up.

Oh.... :\

[EricH]

There was a match replayed that year... in finals... because the lower goal counted 5 balls too many in automode. 4 high (12 points) versus 10 low (10 points), and 10 low won autonomous (score 15 points). Yes. This was in a regional finals match. The way the game was set up, this screwed up the entire match. After this incident and others like it, a delay to allow for the manual counters to report in was added.

It wasn't the hardware, IIRC, but the software that didn't quite work properly.

[FRC4ME]

Whoa...I think this is the most substantial game hint I've seen. Not a cryptic phrase or an obscure photograph, but a parts list for the field? In a plainly readable format?

This is too easy. It must be a decoy. The real game hint is obviously steganographically encoded in the image. Come on CD'ers, start cracking...

[bhaidet]

Could the "Very high speed" of the counter not refer to how many times it can count in a second but its response time to a change of input? I am not sure exactly how it works, but the high speed may just mean that whatever triggers the sensor (probably photogate) is only blocking the photogate for a short time, meaning that it is small and/or moving fast.

Even launching a few balls into a goal a second is "fast" from the game prospective, but is nothing for a computer (and the parts list had LAN adapters that enabled direct IO, I believe somebody posted.) There must be some reason for FIRST to add extra circuitry between the computer and the sensor. If the network is not fast enough to register a goal with whatever sensor it is, the adding of a "quantizing" counter between them would eliminate this problem.

People said that in Aim High the counters were unreliable, does anyone know why? was it a speed-of-signal-pulse issue?

If used like this, this part seems like it would probably have been inserted as a tweak as the GDC played and tested (and figured that it wouldn't work well without it). I can see it happening.




photogate input: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._____/\__________

Time the network is looking for a response (when high): ----____----____-

it would not be recorded because the pulse happens when the network is not listening



with the "quantizer"

photogate input: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._____/\__________
signal to network: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._____/----\______

Time the network is looking for a response (when high): ----____----____-

this time the signal and the async time the network is "looking" line up, so there will be a score detected.

[ratdude747]

I had an idea:

what if the high speed sensors are used to monitor robots driving though lanes? like a 1-robot-per-lane version of overdrive?

just a thought...