What we learned from week 1

[DjScribbles]

While the strategic value of shooting 5pt shots from the floor (with 50% accuracy) is questionable, it sure does get the crowd going.

Floor pick up is much more valuable than I personally expected.

Autonomous points are very big this year; if you can reliably gather extra game pieces, your robot will really stand out.

This game piece is pretty difficult to move around consistently. It's easy to shoot, but loading and collecting caused a few jams that crippled us for a match.

Keep the practice field away from the screen with scoring displays. In Traverse City, the sheet behind the practice goals blocked the view of the scores for approximately 1/3 of the audience.

[Blackphantom91]

1). This Game is a lot harder than expected.
2.) Defense totally rewrites how the game is played. It makes it feel like it is played in turns.
3.) Full-court shooters are very successful in qualifications if not stopped, but may falter in Eliminations rounds.
4.) Auto is the most important part of this game. It is really hard to make a comeback if all hit and one side doesn't. (more so than other seasons)
5.)Defense is going to evolve even further as weeks go by teams shutting down main robots and teams being forced to rely on other partners.

Overall week one impressions autonomous,autonomous,autonomous! This game runs on it IMO. I am hoping to see more 30pt climbs and how it can effect the game later on.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by TD78

The practice field didn't have the plywood base, so it threw my team all off until late Friday afternoon. Our hanger still didn't work as well as we would have hoped...but we didn't expect that curveball.

For us, the measured difference between an arbitrary rung on the practice field and competition field was more than 1 inch.

Measuring the field and adjust-ability in your hanging mechanism are both mandatory this year, I'm afraid.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by TD78

We were going with 29-1/4" that we measured at NH.

We believe it was from the 1/2" plywood base + carpet lining + carpet underneath the pyramid. So the 30" from the actual floor the bots drive around on is 30"...but then you need to take into account the 3/4" of base underneath the pyramid.

The practice field didn't have the plywood base, so it threw my team all off until late Friday afternoon. Our hanger still didn't work as well as we would have hoped...but we didn't expect that curveball.

The problem is that the prints, the manual, and the official field tour videos, show the 30 inches(center) from the floor to be from where the pyramid connects to the floor which is technically on top of the .5in steel, or in the case of districts plywood. So if we follow that correctly when measured from the floor and not the top of the base plate the 1st rung should be 30.5 in(center) or 29.75(bottom) from the floor. So the 28.25" that Jared measured is out of spec by 1.25 inches if measured from the floor or .75 inches if measured to the base plate. I would hope that FIRST wouldn't have put the tolerance of the pyramids in the "the field can be out of spec by 4 inches" specification as the pyramid is such an integral part of the game that it would be a slap in the face to all the teams who designed climbers or robots they thought were short enough to go under the bar but might not be able to at every competition they go to.

[TD78]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

The problem is that the prints, the manual, and the official field tour videos, show the 30 inches(center) from the floor to be from where the pyramid connects to the floor which is technically on top of the .5in steel, or in the case of districts plywood. So if we follow that correctly when measured from the floor and not the top of the base plate the 1st rung should be 30.5 in(center) or 29.75(bottom) from the floor. So the 28.25" that Jared measured is out of spec by 1.25 inches if measured from the floor or .75 inches if measured to the base plate. I would hope that FIRST wouldn't have put the tolerance of the pyramids in the "the field can be out of spec by 4 inches" specification as the pyramid is such an integral part of the game that it would be a slap in the face to all the teams who designed climbers or robots they thought were short enough to go under the bar but might not be able to at every competition they go to.

Trust me, I'm just as confused and frustrated!!! I originally thought the 30" was to the top of the first bar as well (in the game manual). Then I looked at a later rev of the game manual and the dimension looked to be in the center of the bar. In the end, my team attempted to make our static hanger adjustable. I say attempt because I still had to spend 45 minutes at the regional machine shop getting the slots elongated (thank you to the machinist who helped me out!!). So with the full adjusted hanger that *should* have worked on the actually field (we had moved the hanger down based on the drive team's observations), the nose of the hanger was hitting the center of the bar on the practice field (which was measured at ~30" to the center of the first bar from the carpet)... A lot of head scratching until the field bar was measured and we started using 29-1/4". Heard a lot of other teams at BAE were having problems with the bar too.

[Woolly]

Also, on the subject of the pyramid, robots are standing up to falls better than anticipated. There was damage from falls, but I didn't see anything that really messed up a robot unless it flipped off the pyramid and landed directly on a mechanism.

[electroken]

Originally Posted by NotaJoke

EDIT: A top heavy robot is a fallen over robot. I won't feel bad for you when your robot falls over if you designed it to fall over, no offense intended.

Despite other problems, this was the final undoing of the #3 alliance at GSR.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

...I think the ultimate alliance would be one full court shooter, one ground pickup shooter, and one underpyramid defender. Any shots missed by the full court shooter could then be picked up by the ground pickup and scored, as they are now on the right side of the field...

Thank you!!! I've been saying this since the end of week six when the Human Player rule change happened. Nice to see someone else agree with me.

[Gdeaver]

That powder coated conduit is much more slippery than we anticipated. Much worse than raw conduit or can spray painted conduit. We intend to drive up the rail however we need more grip from the wheels. Some very well done shooters and way to many marginal shooters. Last week I was fearing very accurate cross court shooters. I did not see any that struck fear. Will they emerge in the following weeks? A 10 point hang was very effective for week 1 but will it not be enough going forward? Will the quick 20 or thirty point climber gain dominance? Taking the whole tele opp to climb is not good enough and a risky partner. Is a pyramid safe zone really a safe zone? Seems the refs at different venues had varying interpretations of this. One thing for sure this game has plenty of room to evolve.

[notmattlythgoe]

It is very easy for defenders to slow down the flow of the game.

[MrForbes]

I only saw a few matches on the webcasts, mostly during eliminations. I was surprised how few teams were attempting floor pickup in autonomous...this looked to me early on to be a great strategy, and more "worth the effort" than building a high climbing mechanism.

[MisterG]

Originally Posted by sircedric4

Actually I am feeling a lot better today than when I made my previous remarks, I was reading the average scores posted earlier as being per robot instead of per alliance. I do think we will find a place to fit in with our climber / dumper after all. And regardless we will have a cool looking robot and a lot of lessons learned to go forward with. Another lesson is don't post on Chief Delphi disappointed, stop and evaluate first. Emotions suck sometimes. :-)

Darren,

I was really happy to see you post this follow up. We have all had the feeling that we brought a knife to a gunfight. On the other hand if you can do even one aspect of the game consistently you will stand out during scouting and have a decent chance of being picked.

-al g

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

Is a pyramid safe zone really a safe zone? Seems the refs at different venues had varying interpretations of this. One thing for sure this game has plenty of room to evolve.

This is definitely something that will be clarified in a Blog post, and if not definitely asked during the Driver meetings. Specifically, how the Refs at the tournament will be calling out G27 and G30.

... ...

Originally Posted by G27

ROBOTS may not contact or otherwise interfere with their opponents’ PYRAMID. Inconsequential contact will not be penalized.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL. If an opponent’s CLIMB is affected,

RED CARD, and
Each affected opponent ROBOT will be awarded points for a successful Level 3 CLIMB.

Originally Posted by G30

G30
Regardless of who initiates the contact, a ROBOT may not contact an opponent ROBOT

• contacting its PYRAMID or
• touching the carpet in its LOADING ZONE.

Violation: FOUL. If purposeful or consequential, TECHNICAL FOUL. If an opponent's CLIMB is affected, each affected opponent ROBOT will be awarded points for a successful Level 3 CLIMB.

Emphasis (Emphasi?) mine. By reading of the rules, if Red 1 is in contact with the Red Pyramid, and Blue 1 contacts Red 1, then it is a foul (Technical if the robot is climbing), as per G30, AND regardless of who initiated contact. HOWEVER, If Blue 1 contacts the Red PYRAMID then it is a TECHNICAL foul AND a potential RED CARD if Red 1 is in the act of climbing, as per G27. Each ruling carries the potential for a 50 point Super-Technical, should Red 1 be in the process of climbing.

That's how I currently interpret the rules, and I implore you to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Elong451]

Originally Posted by F22Rapture

We drove down to Palmetto to watch, and it seemed to me as though fouls were not being called nearly as often as they should have been. While I can't remember numbers, I recall one incident where a red robot repeatedly (at least 3 times) rammed into a blue robot touching it's pyramid. One minute later... 0 foul points.

The situation did seem to improve in the finals.

@Text change

I could swear I saw the regular, black numbering on the streams from other regionals. The only one I noticed that *did* have the clear numbering was Palmetto. I could be wrong however.

That team did that to us and we played blue and they got like all the foul points. Who sacrifices themselves to do such a stupid thing to the teams on their alliance?

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by CalTran

Emphasis (Emphasi?) mine. By reading of the rules, if Red 1 is in contact with the Red Pyramid, and Blue 1 contacts Red 1, then it is a foul (Technical if the robot is climbing), as per G30, AND regardless of who initiated contact. HOWEVER, If Blue 1 contacts the Red PYRAMID then it is a TECHNICAL foul AND a potential RED CARD if Red 1 is in the act of climbing, as per G27. Each ruling carries the potential for a 50 point Super-Technical, should Red 1 be in the process of climbing.

That's how I currently interpret the rules, and I implore you to correct me if I'm wrong.

If you look at my post a page back, you'll see the Q&A relevant to these kinds of situations, those Q/A responses are what I base my response below on.

Basically, if a Red Robot is Touching the Red Pyramid and is contacted or contacts a blue robot while doing nothing else, then it is a foul.

If that same red robot is attempting to score either by shooting or climbing and the same contact happens, then technically there should be a technical foul because the contact was 'consequential' - if this contact causes the red robot to miss a shot/miss-climb/etc as the contact has changed the outcome of the match.

As far as G27 is concerned, assuming Consequential contact is ruled the same for both G30 and G27, if you contact your opponents pyramid and it has no effect on the outcome of the match**, then there are no problems.

** Meaning that you did not cause a robot to fail at doing something or to do something that it wouldn't have failed/done otherwise.