What should a standard "Pass" be?

[DavisDad]

mrnoble was amazingly accurate of his prediction on game: mrnoble post

I love his hockey view of the game:

"This year, I think I will be saying that our robot plays hockey. The twist might be that it uses a large (3' diameter?) ball instead of a puck. We will need to cooperate and pass frequently in order to score maximum points."

Shoot the ball off the floor like a hockey player lifts the puck. And... there's going to be a lot of checking.

[Darth Drew]

Originally Posted by DavisDad

mrnoble was amazingly accurate of his prediction on game: mrnoble post

I love his hockey view of the game:

"This year, I think I will be saying that our robot plays hockey. The twist might be that it uses a large (3' diameter?) ball instead of a puck. We will need to cooperate and pass frequently in order to score maximum points."

Shoot the ball off the floor like a hockey player lifts the puck. And... there's going to be a lot of checking.

I checked out the post and it seems like he was spot on, except the part about scoring that's easy for the audience to understand!

[CFTeam2980]

I think a ball shooter is more reliable, due to the fact that it says in the rules: "Any extension above 60 in. may not exceed a 6 in. diameter vertical cylinder."
It would then be easier to shoot from alliance's zones, but there's also the fact that you need to catch the ball, or at least pick it off the ground.

[RRLedford]

The infinitely variable power shooter seems like it would be a useful concept to implement in this years game.

-Dick Ledford

[ToddF]

I think my post was a bit off topic for this thread. I'll move it over to a new thread.

[jbsmithtx]

Teams are failing to realize that this ball is incredibly light. And herding this large clumsy object is not as easy it sounds. It flies off in odd directions. It does not behave like a basketball in rebound rumble. It doesn't like to be herded with bumpers

[yash101]

I came up with this pickup/shooter with the ability to pass. You can also add a hopper to the top to allow robots or human players to pass the ball directly into the shooter. It is quite compact and simple and is linear allowing the robot to drive up to a ball, bull-doze it and shoot it. Also, a simple CMUCam would allow you to track the balls and automatically align the robot so that the pickup would be assisted! I think that this is what we have been waiting for.

Here is the link to it in my CDN.

Also, I have the encrypted manuals in the CDN too. Will that cause any copyright problems?

[nixiebunny]

Thinking more about catching the ball led me to consider the size of the robot. We are allowed to make the extensions very big this year - 20 inches outside the perimeter on all sides simultaneously.

It may make sense to have a big funnel made of two folding arms that pivot on the vertical axis about two adjacent robot corners. These would open to about 80 degrees, for a total width of about 56", or more than twice the ball diameter. The funnel sides could be designed to "trip" and hinge closed towards each other when a sensor plate at the perimeter line is pressed by the ball moving toward the robot.

This could be rather tall as well, giving a very large target area for the robot to make it easy to receive a pass.

Is this nuts?

[MrForbes]

Yeah, it's nuts. I was thinking the same thing.

We must have the same brain?

[mitchklong]

I like a soccer analogy better.

The best pass would be one that lands in front of me in my zone so I can easily shove it to the next zone. That should count as an assist.

I think the highest scoring would be each of us playing one zone and moving the ball very quickly between us.