Launcher Accuracy Graph

[SoftwareBug2.0]

That sounds about right. I guess you could determine empirically whether you would gain more points from a given improvement in precision or alignment.

But this seems like a very narrowly applicable result. Normally, you don't know how much better you would make one of them without doing it. I guess this would be useful if you already had two different mechanisms built and you were just trying to choose between them.

Also, paragraphs are your friend.

[saikiranra]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

That sounds about right. I guess you could determine empirically whether you would gain more points from a given improvement in precision or alignment.

But this seems like a very narrowly applicable result. Normally, you don't know how much better you would make one of them without doing it. I guess this would be useful if you already had two different mechanisms built and you were just trying to choose between them.

Also, paragraphs are your friend.

Yea, this all depends on mechanism to mechanism. In a game applicable to this scenario, you need to see if you can justify many small loads or one big load with your specific mechanism in mind.

For example, in 2009, some teams chose to "vomit" all the rocks in large quantities, while other teams chose to specifically target the limited amount they had. Both strategies worked well, but both depended on reliable mechanisms.

[wilhitern1]

I think the biggest dependency would be more on allignment method, as proven last year. Many robots that pushed up against the lower bar of the pyramid had nearly 100% accuracy on the first shot. With that accuracy level. It was too costly to adjust. The best method was for them to machine gun their full load of Frisbees into the goal as fast as possible so you could go back for as many more as possible.

They had hard allignment points that were easily determined.

My second thought is that access to the practice ranges was critical. This is due to object aging / wear (and launcher component aging / wear). The more used, the less accurate. But if you get to make adjustments on the range, you can come up with a new constant. At home you pre-age loads of objects. On the tournament field, you practice from the appropriate load. Again adjustment on the game field may not be necessary.

Neal

[Pendulum^-1]

When using such a graph for strategy discussions, don't forget to identify areas where robots can shoot without real impediment, and take them into account in your discussions. Examples: Zone near wall in 2011, Key in 2012, touching pyramid and loading zone in 2013. I don't know of any similar zones in previous years.

Another factor is the variability from piece to piece. The balls in 2012 were highly susceptible to wear; the discs in 2013 were remarkably durable, consistent and predictable. The variations from piece to piece will affect how valuable such adjustments will be.

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by wilhitern1

I think the biggest dependency would be more on allignment method, as proven last year. Many robots that pushed up against the lower bar of the pyramid had nearly 100% accuracy on the first shot. With that accuracy level. It was too costly to adjust. The best method was for them to machine gun their full load of Frisbees into the goal as fast as possible so you could go back for as many more as possible.

Not really true. While I 100% agree that accuracy was probably in the 80-90th percentile off the first shot for frisbees (at least from under the pyramid), it was definitively not best to just shoot your whole load of frisbees, especially if you missed the first one. That would be true if you had only one or two more frisbees to shoot, or if gathering them took essentially the same amount of time as realigning to shoot would, but neither was true for this game.

You couldn't really add an extra cycle by shooting your discs faster. On the other hand, you could probably score 30-60% more points by just seeing where the first disc went then carefully realigning the robot. If you didn't realign, you essentially just threw away all that time you used to gather those extra discs. If you do realign, sure, you might have burned an extra five seconds, but you'll still get six or nine more points.

Going slow to go fast is one of the major things I work with my drivers on as coach. With something that's in limited supply, like frisbees, you're much better off getting a partial success by going slow than a complete failure by rushing.