Week Zero Discussion/Impressions/Discoveries/Fun Facts

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by IKE

Some robots I saw at a Week 0 had a difficult time starting with a ball in the robot, and all parts of their robot staying in the frame perimeter.

Auton will be pretty neat as many robots will be doing things. shortly after auton is boring and many teams will be waiting on a partner to "clear the ball" before cycles can start.

From a crowd perspective I noticed as well. Because of only 1 ball, while the scoring robot is trying to score, the other 2 seemed idle at times waiting for the next cycle.
We are going to see a lot of boring matches at regionals early on.

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by waialua359

From a crowd perspective I noticed as well. Because of only 1 ball, while the scoring robot is trying to score, the other 2 seemed idle at times waiting for the next cycle.
We are going to see a lot of boring matches at regionals early on.

If you're not doing anything, you're doing something wrong. Play some defense! All you need to do is block an opposing robot from getting where it needs to go, even if it's not holding the ball, and you've done a lot of good for your alliance.

Another observation: Catching the ball is, in most cases, more trouble than it's worth. Note that there's no restriction on playing defense against a robot lining up to catch a ball... just make sure you don't catch it yourself!

[MarcD79]

The Suffield Shakedown Scrimmage went well. As always there are usually some quarks, but nothing we couldn't handle. I want to thank everybody involved with making it a success. That means not only our team, but all those step-up volunteers at the event from other teams. The District events are looking for volunteers like this.
We had made a commitment to all the teams who signed up for the event. We really had to beg the school to let us hold the event. I think the Scrimmage taught what worked & what didn't, even though there wasn't a full house of robots.
Because the weather was turning worse, I made the decision to forgo the eliminations & end the event so the teams had a safer ride home. When Jack The Hat Kentfield made the announcement, I didn't expect the reaction we got. Every body clapped & cheered. I thought they would boo us. To all who attended the Scrimmage, I thank you.

[BrendanB]

One thought that is helpful for all teams before bagging your robot is check your ball pickup mechanism with a FULLY inflated ball. The balls at the Week Zero event were inflated so there were no creases in the ball (which was fuller than what we practiced with in our shop. Its a simple change for us but some teams might have a really hard time.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

One thought that is helpful for all teams before bagging your robot is check your ball pickup mechanism with a FULLY inflated ball. The balls at the Week Zero event were inflated so there were no creases in the ball (which was fuller than what we practiced with in our shop. Its a simple change for us but some teams might have a really hard time.

Was the field staff aware of the inflation guide? Were they over inflated as per the guide?

[IKE]

The inflation guide is helpful, but remember, not all volunteers read every single rule. I remember seeing Red triangle tube in 2011, that I could tell from the Webcast were over-inflated ...

[Craig Roys]

Originally Posted by IKE

The inflation guide is helpful, but remember, not all volunteers read every single rule. I remember seeing Red triangle tube in 2011, that I could tell from the Webcast were over-inflated ...

One of our events in 2011 had many tubes that could barely (if at all) be fed through the slot as they were over-inflated which caused us to have to do some redesigning at the event...we discussed that many times while designing out ball collection/shooting systems for this year's game.

[JesseK]

We attended a "Week 0" event, hosted by Chantilly Robotics (612). Many thanks to them for finding a space and building the field! We learned a mountain's worth of information about our own robot. The event wasn't crowded, so we were able to stay on the field for pretty much as long as we wanted. We got about 3 hours of drive time. We already nailed a quick 1-ball autonomous, so today was all teleop.

- There was a noticeable drop in the amount of time it took to rectify errors between the start and end of the drive time. In other words, through the drills and raw trial/error, the drivers became MUCH better at chasing down a ball. I think it will be painfully obvious if a team's drivers haven't had practice if competing against those who have.
- It was best to simply load right next to the human player. We tried a variety of inbounding techniques including rolling, tossing, etc. The lower the kinetic energy required to complete the inbound, the faster that ball went sailing over the truss.
- Flat trajectories with plenty of power are KING of the high goal. There's such a large margin of error I think we missed 3 shots all day - and one of those was while trying something completely experimental.
- We are forever hooked on Colson Performa wheels. 3 hours of driving, very little wear and 0 maintenance.
- The best catches across all of FRC will come from TRUSS specialists who apply the minimum amount of kinetic energy to a TRUSS shot. In fact, I bet almost anyone can catch with some practice and that type of bot.
- With the last bullet in mind, I think it's better to just not plan to catch unless a robot has specifically built something specifically to catch and can absorb the energy of an average TRUSS bot's ball. A single bad catch could cost an entire cycle's worth of time depending on where the ball wound up going.
- Inbound-TRUSS vs Inbound-Assist-TRUSS - who knows. Still on the fence about that one
- Low kinetic energy pass-assists will do very well. I wish we could have practiced more of them today.
- Getting a ball off of the edge of the field without incurring penalties will take a lot of practice; it is the biggest advantage we gained today. We ran drills of doing just that all up and down the field so our driver could gauge various distances and angles. We figured out that it takes an extra second or two to do it right with our robot, but the penalty for getting it wrong is equivalent to giving the opponents 20 extra seconds of free time. The biggest danger to teams will be driving right next to the wall chasing down a ball - just a corner of the intake clipping the edge while adjusting to the ball will incur a penalty.
- Pushing the ball into the low goal is easy, but getting the ball there in a controlled manner to do so isn't. It's much better to contain the ball and then go into the low goal over the top. Not that we'll do too much low goal.
- Assists without ingesting a ball are a bit harder than I thought. We'll see how it goes when more teams are trying.
- This one is more of an eliminations-type bullet. This game will take a LOT of higher-level coaching - i.e. coaches who micro-manage will hurt their alliance due to lack of field vision. As a result, drivers need to be able to think on their own until re-directed. Drivers need to be able to communicate with themselves. The coach needs to learn their specific lexicon (i.e. 'kick' is not the same thing as 'intake' even though it's the same movement) so communication of the higher-level strategy can be done in terms they immediately understand. Field vision, to understand what allies and opponents are up to, is key.
- The ball didn't go out of the field but once or twice (during catches) and then it wasn't where our own HP's could have had an effect. As a result I don't know how much we will want our human player outside of the inbounding zone - three HP's running a ball out to the cycle is much better than one depending on the match tradeoffs.

[JamesCH95]

In-bounding was a huge time-suck. A lot of teams were chasing balls around, or waiting for them to stop bouncing, before they could get a cycle started. As were bumbled balls after auto. Same with missed high-goal shots.

Defense will be very important, but being able to switch from offense to defense and/or counter-defense will be even more important.

When the bearings in your WCP colson hub explode... you're gunna have a bad time

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Was the field staff aware of the inflation guide? Were they over inflated as per the guide?

They were, I even saw that procedure with my very own eyes.

[DampRobot]

Shooting too hard can hurt you. We were shooting so hard at Teh Chezy Pofs field we were bending their field spec goals. Having such a fast, flat trajectory seemed to make it more difficult to line up. Back at our field, we switched to weaker springs and had a much easier time making shots.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Shooting too hard can hurt you. We were shooting so hard at Teh Chezy Pofs field we were bending their field spec goals. Having such a fast, flat trajectory seemed to make it more difficult to line up. Back at our field, we switched to weaker springs and had a much easier time making shots.

The one thing we noticed with robots with low trajectory flat fast shots:
As they try to shoot on the fly while moving towards a goal, the shot really dives and many misses were below the goal.
I think some teams that prototyped designs didnt factor making shots other than if the robot is stationary. Unless of course they have a variable shooter.

[cglrcng]

We did not attend a scrimmage this "Zero week" as we are hours away from our nearest held, but last Thursday the comp bot was disassembled down to the drivetrain again, parts and pcs went across town for the powdercoating (actually our entire team took off Friday completely for V-Day)...Too tired to even go to dinner, we were at home. Rest was needed.

Saturday AM the powdercoating took place, and then all pitched in & re-assembled and tested, then dropped off the competition bot, tools, charger and bat's at our practice field a few blocks away from the shop. Sunday AM we had the programmer busy on the Auto coding and fine adjustments & (within an hr. that was set and corrected and perfect (as long as the bot was pre-charged w/ air properly of course), and it was hitting 100% high goal nothing but air), then we had a 10 hr. very complete shakedown session, and that compressor surprisingly is still working just fine.

I think throughout the 10 hr. shakedown, at least 80% of the student team members showed up & drove sometime today (our field is in a vacated elem. school library area...Thank you Mr. Jacks!), w/ empty bookshelves lining 90% of the walls). Carpeted floor, one high goal half, one low goal, and a half field real alum. truss like the actual FIRST field uses, and plenty of other open space to chase that big rolling ball. (Two quite tender knots on my head right now tell me that the students (and adults), on the field this year, would be better to either not wear a stupid hat like I did...Or at least make it a certified hard hat this year!) That truss is hard!

Many of those that drove today had never in their lives ever driven the bot, and many never a wheel and a stick at once (sometimes it showed, but each became better very quickly, and some were instant matches right off the bat and had practiced/played together in the past).

They beat those shelves (and the bot), up pretty good practicing everything they could from inbounding into the bot (rolling into it from the shelf, tossing into it, throwing into it), chasing down & ball pickups from every angle possible and against everything in that room imaginable (I actually think when they have solid flat walls on a real field it will be that much easier, but that constant interaction w/ field and room elements, was much like facing opposing & defending bots all day & night). High goal shooting 90%+ all day, low goal delivery pretty much perfected now also, passing, pushing, and running on a 2.5 min. clock, then switching out drivers. Lots of practice was had by all.

The most amazing thing was (no matter how much I grimaced all day, whenever they slammed it into something hard, most often w/ the ball pickup out and chasing hard, and sometimes w/ the ball tucked up tightly & neatly held inside the frame perimeter and at full speed...Because, of course, I personally want to see that well built, working & colorful thing go into the bag "undamaged on Tuesday night", be fully ready to just be inspected and pass right off the bat, and hit the Field for a full Thursday practice session at the first Regional we attend in over a month),....It needed a good hard shakedown...and it certainly received it today!

Happy to say....No breakdowns all day (though I was looking for another compressor in the shop tonight just in case we wore that 1 out...I found it! Let's order another also please, OK?)

Just a whole bunch of compressor cooldowns and regular battery changes...A bit of code adjustments, some out of the box "let's see what this will do" testing....And a heat gun aided "tusk angle" adjustment to get that within the 20" extension maximum safely, and a wee bit better mouse tra....err, "ball trap".

Usually, the hardest thing is getting the "good auto" programming & then the on field timed reality of it, down pat and repeatable. That was actually the easy part this year w/this very robust / and very repeatable design.

Then to top all.....they went off this evening...(I'm looking at only 48 hrs. to go.....and maybe 10 real hrs. of real working shop time left or so)...And they start the not so easy...."Over the Truss tosses by hand" & attempting to catch, some not so well aimed & some pretty hard landings of the ball into, on, in, & off of the bot...about 20 or so good hard tosses....I'm really grimacing now, as you can possibly imagine right?.....YES....errr, Nooooo! (George...Our industry mentor, is cool as a cucumber...saying, hey, I'd rather it break now then later). Me...I'm freaking out and looking for the door!

But, they actually got it down pretty good catching a few early, & 4 of the last 5 pretty hard throws, and no damage at all to the toy. (We needed to find out what was best..."tusks" open or closed, or..."when to close actually" for best catch timing, to keep that ball from bouncing in & then out again). Or better yet if we even feel comfortable in attempting the catch later on...I now say...Go for it! (But, pick and choose based on ball height please! Stay away from those rocket shots to the moon.) That test gave me a headache....Or was that the 2 good truss hits to the head I took a little earlier?

Overall, it was as "very" intense a shakedown, as I personally have seen us do before bagging, so far. And everyone around here now seems pretty relaxed after today and extremely proud of this years build.

Still lots to do...More work to accomplish (and a ton of practice time left w/ the "not as pretty bot" but, functionally the same, left to go in the next month!) A new A/M P.U. gearbox is on the way for the practice bot, and we are practicing for another month w/ a near duplicate. Oh, and a shop or 2 to clean up. BIGTIME!

We appreciate those vids & tips on the game (and the elements & game strategies listed that you perceived & witnessed), from those that attended scrimages this "zero week" weekend, and we will be reviewing & discussing many of them tomorrow and in the days to come. Thank you!

For those that have early Regionals...Good Luck to all....And we'll see you in PHX. & L.V. & hopefully St. Louis!

[JamesCH95]

Here are some match videos from the Merrimack Week 0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfxBE2ocTXc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vojAM_yHwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNAqjYgNGZE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qN95IMu-0o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uuvB6S376Y

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by cglrcng

We did not attend a scrimmage this "Zero week" as we are hours away from our nearest held

We're 200+ miles away too...we fortunately got our robot together and working in time, and made the long drive to Arcadia High. First time we've had a real field trip to the Duel, it was fun! Sorry you couldn't make it, but thanks for the detailed report on things you learned with your robot this weekend.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Shooting too hard can hurt you. We were shooting so hard at Teh Chezy Pofs field we were bending their field spec goals. Having such a fast, flat trajectory seemed to make it more difficult to line up. Back at our field, we switched to weaker springs and had a much easier time making shots.

Never before have I seen a game piece launched by a robot blow the polycarb window out of the drivers' station wall. So... congratulations?