pre-game positioning: MIDDLE of the pyramid?

[ctccromer]

One idea that I've been reminding my team of pretty much every day, is to make our robot so that in the pre-game (autonomous), we can be in the back and therefore start with 3 frisbees, but still allow both our teammates (or us) to be at the corners and also start with 3 frisbees.

Has anyone else thought about doing this? as far as I know, the rules are
1) Must be in contact with the PYRAMID (not the CORNER of the pyramid, so this theoretically includes the 30" bar halfway between the two back corners)
2) To start with a 3rd frisbee, the robot must be in contact with the carpet touches the back two corners on the pyramid

So can we just put an antenna on our robot that touched the 30" bar and be fine? Does it have to be a certain part of your robot or anything? Anyone else had this thought?

You can have an antenna as long as it fits within your frame perimeter.

I also fail to see what this would achieve. If you were to start behind the alliance line with 3 frisbees, you wouldn't be getting in your partner's way (assuming they start in front of the pyramid), and an antenna wouldn't assist you in any way, as it would just move your robot farther back from the tower and closer to the center line.

[Becca334]

Something like this has been asked in the Q&A.

https://frc-qa.usfirst.org/Question/123/questionlink

So yes, it is possible for you to start off in the match like that.

[Ryan Caldwell]

That is our plan, finding a sweet spot for the shooter to go through the bars has been interesting.
The disks do not fly flat. If you add power the Disk will lift initially and then come down on a slow arch. less power = less initial lift and a steeper arch of decent.

Don't have any vids of the disk skipping around inside the pyramid but it was a fairly epic fail to have the frisbee bounce off of all for uprights and two different horizontal bars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvmIwxxDBjg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK8kfpHBGhU

[JesseK]

This is a great idea. Have 3 potential positions you can dead-reckon and fire from. Then start adding in any extra movement. If you only ever have a dead-reckoning autonomous, it needs to be as accommodating as possible.

Last year, the best spot for dead reckoning was on the far left corner of the key. Most mid-goal scorers could follow either line to score. That spot also didn't get in the way of the coop bridge bot that went backwards, nor did it get in the way of a bot which tried to get the balls from the colored bridge in autonomous. Finally, from that spot the robot was in prime position to immediately block any inbounding balls at the start of teleop.

[ctccromer]

Awesome, glad to know this is legal

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

I also fail to see what this would achieve. If you were to start behind the alliance line with 3 frisbees, you wouldn't be getting in your partner's way (assuming they start in front of the pyramid), and an antenna wouldn't assist you in any way, as it would just move your robot farther back from the tower and closer to the center line.

We're not assuming a partner starts in front of the pyramid, but exactly the opposite. We're planning for the best-case scenario: both of our teammates are total monsters and we don't want to get in their way. And in any other case, lets just say the other extreme (that WE'LL carry the team), we still won't be in anyone elses way.
Not to mention that it'd be very easy to plan autonomous from either back corner OR the middle, giving us three different starting positions, all of which give us the 3rd frisbee

[Kevin_Morris]

Originally Posted by ctccromer

We're not assuming a partner starts in front of the pyramid, but exactly the opposite. We're planning for the best-case scenario: both of our teammates are total monsters and we don't want to get in their way. And in any other case, lets just say the other extreme (that WE'LL carry the team), we still won't be in anyone elses way.
Not to mention that it'd be very easy to plan autonomous from either back corner OR the middle, giving us three different starting positions, all of which give us the 3rd frisbee

Be careful, this kind of thinking will win you matches . It's all too often that teams approach robot design and match strategy like they're the only robot on the field. Designing a robot to work effectively as part of an alliance will get you far, good job.

[ctccromer]

Originally Posted by Kevin_Morris

Be careful, this kind of thinking will win you matches . It's all too often that teams approach robot design and match strategy like they're the only robot on the field. Designing a robot to work effectively as part of an alliance will get you far, good job.

This is our third year as an FRC team, and the last two years have really showed us that. Our first year we got Rookie of the year and were basically the underdogs that many people saw as the best 3rd pick team. Last year we were picked by top 8 alliances as the great 3rd pick team

So even though we don't AIM to be "everyone's favorite newbie", we've DEFINITELY learned to design not only OUR personal strategy, but our TEAM strategy to make us a more attractive team pick