Standard for ball handoff?

[Quazar]

It occurs to me that smooth handoff from one robot to another will be important to get quick cycle times (and high scores). To avoid time spent chasing the ball around on the carpet, it seems like it might be handy to have some general approach to ball handoff.

For instance, if many/most bots can place balls in the low goal, then making sure you can also accept balls around 7" high would allow easy low handoff.

A throw/catch handoff would be much harder to standardize, but might be worth some discussion.

Thoughts?

[Davis Racing]

true, however I am picturing a a third baseman running the ball to the second baseman who in turn runs the ball to the first baseman. That would take so much more time than throwing the ball. However, a bad throw changes everything.

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by Davis Racing

true, however I am picturing a a third baseman running the ball to the second baseman who in turn runs the ball to the first baseman. That would take so much more time than throwing the ball. However, a bad throw changes everything.

What about a really low throw, to where it is essentially on the ground, and reaches the next robot within a second or so?

[TucoSalamanc]

A roll is always going to be more practical then a throw. Check the table below to see what I mean

Toss

• Team A can toss: Team B can't catch (NO)
• Team A can toss: Team B can catch (YES)
• Team A can't toss: Team B can catch (NO)
• Team A can't toss: Team B can't catch (NO)

If every team can pickup off the ground, and can bump the ball, a roll will always be more reliable. Also with a roll, both parties can give and receive. You are hitting %100 of unobstructed passes, taking a little more time, instead of 75% tossed. Unless you really need that catch bonus, roll will allow much more versatility.

[Quazar]

Originally Posted by TucoSalamanc

A roll is always going to be more practical then a throw. Check the table below to see what I mean

Toss

• Team A can toss: Team B can't catch (NO)
• Team A can toss: Team B can catch (YES)
• Team A can't toss: Team B can catch (NO)
• Team A can't toss: Team B can't catch (NO)

If every team can pickup off the ground, and can bump the ball, a roll will always be more reliable. Also with a roll, both parties can give and receive. You are hitting %100 of unobstructed passes, taking a little more time, instead of 75% tossed. Unless you really need that catch bonus, roll will allow much more versatility.

I agree that picking up off the ground is a critical capability, since that is necessary to deal with a stray ball. However, passing on the ground runs the risk of interference from the other alliance. It seems like a direct handoff might be safer.

[Iaquinto.Joe]

So interfacing with an unknown robot with a potentially incompatible transmission device that requires both parties to remain adjacent and relatively motionless and high risk of entanglement/ damage to critical game piece manipulation devices in a location where both robots are free game for ramming and general defense is safer than setting the ball on the ground and driving away for the other team to acquire it? Best of luck to your team.

The last time any "Standardization" of devices was proposed was in 2011 with minibots and minibot deployments. Nobody used that and teams who had spare minibots needed to work around their alliance members to add the bot + deployment + code. This won't work until FRC reaches critical mass with collaborative efforts, at which it wasn't then and it isn't now.

Exchange balls over the common medium, the ground.

[EricWilliams]

Originally Posted by Iaquinto.Joe

This won't work until FRC reaches critical mass with collaborative efforts, at which it wasn't then and it isn't now.

Exchange balls over the common medium, the ground.

It won't work until people are willing to stop shooting it down. FRC is supposed to be (in part) a cooperative competition of great minds in science and technology. I don't think there's any group of competitors out there that are better candidates for this type of design activity. The parameters are extremely strictly defined, the underlying technology (parts/materials) are virtually identical across the entire competition, and there is a clear competitive advantage for this in terms of having a successful match.

I'm not saying it's going to be done this year. All I'm saying is that if competing companies (real life, real stakes) can come together under standards, so can FRC teams.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Quazar

For instance, if many/most bots can place balls in the low goal, then making sure you can also accept balls around 7" high would allow easy low handoff.

We came up with a similar plan, it's not going to work for every team but being able to keep ball control through out the match is going to reduce cycle times greatly.

I don't even think this is something that has to be standardized since the minimum height of the top of a set of bumpers is 7 inches most teams with an over the bumper ball collection are going to be possible hand off candidates. Appendages that stick out past the bumpers will cause some challenges but I still think handoffs will happen pretty regularly.

[DampRobot]

IMO when most teams "possess" a ball to earn credit for an assist, it will probably never even be gripped by them. They'll just push it around a bit to show that they're controlling it. Then, the next the bot will push it around a bit in the middle zone. Finally, the best bot will hurdle, than score for 10.

There's no point in trying to make some complicated mechanism for acquiring ball with an intake and all, when all you have to do is show the refs that you're possessing the ball. Per the rules, all this requires is two taps in the right direction. And all that requires is a good drivetrain with decent drivers.

Most teams in this game will only have to have good drivetrains to play well. There only needs to be one bot per alliance that can hurdle and score. Also, odds are that if you're worse than the best bot on your alliance at hurdling/scoring, you shouldn't bother trying. If you want assist points, all you need to do is to tap the ball twice, and it'll likely be much more effective strategically to quickly control the ball with your DT than pick it up and take ten seconds trying to shoot it.