95 Hard at work

[JamesCH95]

Our carwash mounts have been beat to heck given the game play. Fortunately we had anticipated this situation, and made stronger kitty-based replacements.



Though even the kitties weren't enough to stop us from a major failure in our deck after playing some particularly aggressive defense.



We're all patched up and running reliably, but it sure has been brutal out there!

The robot is playing out about as we thought it would: we win pretty much any match when we're paired with a shooter, and have gotten a lot of truss, catch, and assist points in those matches. Matches were we have 1 working alliance partner who can only ground-load aren't turning out so well. Thus far we haven't had any matches will all ground-loading robots.

[JamesCH95]

We had a very fun time at the GSDE, with a disappointing run in eliminations.

As posted we had some carnage and a few things that broke and/or needed more fine tuning, but nothing really catastrophic (certainly nothing like Week 0!) We were really glad to have two independent intake mechanisms; in a few matches we lost on a chain on one and were still able to score with the other. After reinforcing the deck that was damaged (see previous post) our intake mechanism geometry changed in a way that we had not anticipated. This lead to some matches with awkward ball pickup, losing possession of the ball, and missed 2-ball auto programs, but we were able to apply a good fix and haven't had issues since. We had some problems with our brake pads being torn up and dragging on the ground that we fixed too. We also had a few hiccoughs with our 2-ball and 1-ball auto moves, but have worked through those issues and had them running reliably by the end of the event. There are some parts that require revision before our next event, but nothing too serious.

From a strategic point of view the robot played very much how we expected: when we had a solid group of alliance partners we scored very high and usually won. When we were grouped with non-functional, non-cooperative, or non-present robots our scoring was atrocious because we rely on assists and trussing/catches to generate points. We wound up with a 7-5 record after qualifications, with an event-best of 320 assist points. We were the highest-seeded non-shooting robot, and if we had won just one more match we likely would have seeded second (and at least one of our qualification matches was lost due to penalty points we didn't incur) but that's how it goes some times!

This was, I think, our highest scoring match. Twice we scored 1pt goals after catching a truss to make a triple assist. It shows how quickly we can convert a caught truss shot and assists into points and how quickly we can get into position for a catch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq_LmY7Npb0

I think all of our match videos are posted on the same YouTube channel if you're interested. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I am really satisfied with how well our drivers have learned to use both sides of a two-pickup robot. It has saved a ton of time because we don't have to reorient a robot, and given us a lot of options in getting around defenders.

We were selected by team 2648 in the first round, team 885 joined our alliance in the second round. In the first quarter-finals match we were dead in the water. The explanation we got from the FTA was that the FMS system had gotten an erroneous reading from one of our joysticks and had locked them out. Apparently we should have pressed F1 to reset them... I wish we had known that, or they had come over during the match to see what was wrong! 2648 and 885 did a heck of a job getting that match to within 11pts as 2V3. In the second match we were operational, cleaned up a missed auto ball and tried to catch some truss shots, but it just wasn't working out for our alliance. We played some good far-field defense, and even transitioned to passing between 2684 and 885 when we needed to. In the end we couldn't quite pull it off, but we certainly gave it a good go. We would like to thank 2648 and 885 for playing with us in the eliminations!

Here is a video of our second quarter-final match. Around 3:40 you can see our robot rock back and our bumper land on top of 1517's bumper. That was called as a 50pt technical foul for deliberate or damaging contact inside the frame perimeter of another robot. For the record, it was unintentional and (call me crazy) seemed quite inconsequential.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvaok5gPPpQ

We are looking forward to competing at the Hartford CT District Event at the end of March. Good luck to all teams!

[JamesCH95]

Our 3-ball autonomous...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbTj9oifrGA

[JamesCH95]

We had a good time at HCTDE. We played some really good matches, scored a few upsets, and were really able to flex the capabilities of our robot.

We pulled off a 3-ball auto move, twice. The only two times that program has ever been run! We didn't have time to test it before we used it. It helped us win one upset match and very nearly win another upset match.

I think we concretely demonstrated the viability of a good catching robot, but also showed how important a good shooter is in that effort. In one of our replay matches 177 was able to truss to us 2-3 times with us under defense from 1-2 robots, from blue zone to red zone no less! It was really nice to play with 177 for the first time in years.

We ran our quarter-final rounds to 3, and only lost the last match by 10 points. Very close, and a bit disappointing, but I know each team on our alliance drove their hearts out. An unfortunate combination of bad luck and a strong opposing alliance kept us from advancing. Thank you 3464 for picking us! And Thank you 178 for rounding out our alliance! You guys were two of the best drive team's we've worked with.

We did win the Xerox Creativity Award for our braking system and catching mechanism. This was most gratifying, and our first technical award since 2008. Team 571, Paragon, also gave us an award from their team for most creative robot design. I'm not sure which one means more to us: the official FRC award or Paragon's!

Unfortunately it's looking like we won't have the points to qualify for the District Championships. We will probably be doing a couple post-season events though.

Here are some pictures from the Hartford event and a link to our team's youtube account where match videos, including robot and drive team GoPro footage, will be posted sometime later this week.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/supato...57643219020225
(I think this is the best shot of our robot all season!)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/supato...57643219020225
https://www.flickr.com/photos/supato...57643219020225
https://www.flickr.com/photos/supato...57643219020225
https://www.flickr.com/photos/supato...57643219020225
https://www.flickr.com/photos/supato...57643219020225

95's Youtube Channel

Thank you everyone for reading, commenting, and following along this season. I know it made a big difference to our students to hear all of your positive comments and feedback throughout build and at each district event.

[Nathan Streeter]

I was very bummed to see you guys go out in the quarterfinals again... your alliances have gotten some tough luck in terms of opponents and partners braking!

I'm personally hoping the DCMP invites will somehow dip down to 51 points! If not, I'm sure we'll see you at various off-season events! :-)