What we learned from week 1

[F22Rapture]

Regarding autonomous, is it more effective to just place in the same spot consistently and go to the correct angle, or to use vision targeting, or some combination?

[TheMadCADer]

Originally Posted by Sean Raia

So true. Mid-Game scoring can not be relied upon as much as it could in Rebound Rumble (meaning, I feel that defense is somehow more effective in this game). If you are going to pull ahead in a match it had better be early on in Auton, or at the end with high climbs.

A 7-disc autonomous is a killer this year, because it can be made much more reliable than a bridge autonomous could last year. 24 extra points right off the bat gets you a huge lead. The other alliance has to score 8 more discs than you just to catch up, and chances are your robot is also good at shooting tele-op discs if it can do a 7-disc auto.

I'd also note how huge of an impact 610's drive team had for them. They were spinning past defenders every trip, and had an awesome technique that used the defender's own pyramid to get free (they'd get them stuck up against the diagonal all the time, it was very fun to watch). First Nick Lawrence, now this driver, plus the always great driving from 1114 and 2056... I guess great drivers come from Ontario.

Originally Posted by TheMadCADer

A 7-disc autonomous is a killer this year, because it can be made much more reliable than a bridge autonomous could last year. 24 extra points right off the bat gets you a huge lead. The other alliance has to score 8 more discs than you just to catch up, and chances are your robot is also good at shooting tele-op discs if it can do a 7-disc auto.

A 7 disc auto would give you 42 points, no? Even more emphasizing your point on the importance of gaining a lead in autonomous. Your opponent would need to score 14 frisbees in the top goal to catch up.

[TheMadCADer]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

A 7 disc auto would give you 42 points, no? Even more emphasizing your point on the importance of gaining a lead in autonomous. Your opponent would need to score 14 frisbees in the top goal to catch up.

I should have pointed out that I was assuming the other robot that yours "matches-up" against has a pre-loaded 3-disc autonomous, so it would be 42-18 before other robots factor in (giving you that 24 point lead). Your point is absolutely valid if the other robot scores zero.

[Hebrew]

Any videos out of eliminations yet? I checked BA and could find nothing.

[Akash Rastogi]

Observation/learned - many teams still don't have reliable, or any in some instances, 10 point hangers.

[nobrakes8]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

Care to elaborate on this one? Did it have an effect on gameplay/driving around the pyramid?

We have a low hanging piston for our shooter (our robot was designed to be low) and it ended up getting caught on part of the carpet that was torn up. It bent our rod 90 degrees without us even realizing until it came time to shoot.

Team 16 had issues catching the carpet with their robot too.. But that might have had something to do when our team collided with them in our last qualification match (our frame got bent and they didn't seem to work the same again during eliminations).

But point being if you're a good robot you're going to take a beating this year and things with a close floor tolerance can poise an issue with the carpet. Also it'll be worthwhile to make a quick walk around your pyramid to make sure the carpet is taped down well prior to starting the match.

[itsjustmrb]

Battle Bot style defense is a viable solution for some teams.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by itsjustmrb

Battle Bot style defense is a viable solution for some teams.

Depends on where you do it.
HINT: Don't repeatedly do it when the team is firing away in their loading zone and you start accumulating over a hundred points in technical fouls.
Though the move 48 pulled on 1559 where they ran under the blue pyramid and shoved them all the way across the field before they could hang had to be the boldest defensive move I have ever seen. It could have backfire bigtime.

[EricDrost]

Originally Posted by jblay

I didn't really see this being a problem for any alliance in the webcasts, do you have an example of it being an issue.

When there are two robots shooting well into the high goal for auto (us and 2363, us and 245, etc.) The chains bounce up, leaving the back of the goal exposed. If you time it well, you'll be fine. If not, your shots will bounce out.

It also helps to have the robots shooting from different positions, not side by side.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

Care to elaborate on this one? Did it have an effect on gameplay/driving around the pyramid?

For us it had a huge impact. We have a ramp system from intake rollers in the front to our hopper in the back, and every tape line around the pyramid was a trouble spot for us. Also in eliminations at GSR, team 175 pulled about a foot of carpet up on the corner of a pyramid.

[Wayne TenBrink]

Autonomous is critical. Its also fun to watch the barrage of discs going into the same goal - no need to coordinate timing to avoid mid-air collisions like last year!

Shooting from the pyramid seems a more robust strategy than from the feeder zone. You have options for feeding (floor, feeder stations at either corner) and shooting (left, right, center) and mobility (multiple paths to and from - harder to defend). Defense can slow you down, but can't shut you down. Full court shooting has only one place to go for shooting, takes time to set up, and can be blocked.

10 point hang is good.

I fear that all the time and effort we put into a climber may have been for naught. Even if it works, it takes a lot of time and adds a lot of risk for a modest net gain.

[Zuelu562]

From my vantage point (read bedroom), I noticed quite a lot at BAE

Climbers: 30 pointers are not greatly viable. Instantly turns the match into a 2v3, where you start with a 30 point lead (you hope). 10 point is stronger because you can work with frisbees or play defense, and get 30 additional points if everyone hangs.

Shooters: Long range is strong if you're good. Tower is strong if you do it well.

Defense: From what little I saw on Saturday, the "defense" was ramming into other robots at midfield. Defending long rangers with tall robots is ideal.

Hanging: Seems like a couple got away with ground touches, and I even saw one or two that looked to me like it was touching 3 zones while climbing.

Penalties: with the lack of audio on the BAE stream, I couldn't exactly keep strong track of penalties, but when I saw something, it was accounted for (by and large).

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Hebrew

Any videos out of eliminations yet? I checked BA and could find nothing.

1519 has uploaded videos of 8 of the 9 quarter-finals at the Granite State Regional. Here's the playlist... http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLJ8AkRj4AlXS0TSTsI5BrWEbRxhDpuK3&f eature=view_all... I believe we have more yet to upload.

I'm sure more videos from this and other regionals will also appear soon...

[sircedric4]

I learned a lot this weekend and all of it just makes me sick to my stomach. Looks like this year will be a very good year for lessons learned for our team bible.

1) The GDC did an awesome job this year building a trap. Let's call the game Ultimate Ascent and introduce this awesome pyramid and impossible top target and then it turns out to be a waste of a season to defeat the obstacle. We and only a few others conquered the very difficult only to watch EVERYONE (hyperbole!) outscore our top end.

We have this awesome climber and dumper and I am seriously thinking about scrapping the whole thing and bolting a quick 3 day robot shooter, human fed device and quick ram the bar 10 pointer to the robot at our one and only regional.

2) Autonomous and frisbee throwing is perhaps the easiest I have ever seen it when it comes to scoring pieces. This is a year that experience actually worked against us. There has never been a scoring game with such consistent pieces, so one lesson learned is always build a game piece scorer immediately before even trying to determine your strategy.


Congratulations all teams of FRC for bringing some good scoring to the game and I guess it will only get better from here for you frisbee throwers.

I could go on but I am just gonna try and reconcile what I saw this weekend with how we saw the games going and determine what we are gonna do. Honestly we are so tired after such an exhausting build season, that I suspect we will just "run what we brung" and we will be the cool looking climber that does contribute consistently. I know that will earn us a spot on an alliance, but it really is disappointing to take the road less traveled and find everyone else at the destination when you get there.

The journey this year will hopefully be worth it since we will definitely have a lot of lessons learned. This year the students and I get to deal with conquering the impossible and that awesome feeling, and then we get to learn how to deal with disappointment when everyone and their mother outscores with "easier" robots.


(PS. I am not trivializing the "easier" robots before you get all in a hissy, I know all those were built in the same 6 week vacuum we were. But shooters have been done for years and there was a 3 day robot, so frisbee throwers were easier to get a base scorer.) :-)