[FTC]: 2014-2015 FTC Game: Cascade Effect

[PHFTC]

Seems like maybe the designers were after true navigational robots? I see a lot of tasks for 30 seconds, large distances to be covered, and the probability of another robot in your path seems significant!

Another non-defensive year?

[Scott_4140]

Originally Posted by PHFTC

Seems like maybe the designers were after true navigational robots? I see a lot of tasks for 30 seconds, large distances to be covered, and the probability of another robot in your path seems significant!

Another non-defensive year?

On the contrary! I think defense is going to be a factor. Any rookie team that only has a basic chassis running can play pretty effective defense this year.

In Autonomous they can drive down the ramp and hamper the other alliance going for the IR Beacon. Or they can start on the mat and prevent the other alliance going for the Rolling Goals. Or they can take up a blocking location that prevents them from moving the goals to their parking zone.

In TeleOp they can heard balls, (5 at a time), away from the other alliance. One robot can slow down two robots pretty easy if they are on the same half of the field.

[Jerry McManus]

In regards to the random position of the center tower, I'm wondering if teams could use something like a program chooser to select a custom routine for autonomous mode.

The Cougar Robotics team uses something like that, once their autonomous code is loaded on the nxt brick it runs code that displays a menu which allows them to select which "strategy" they want to run for that match.

Even a simple strategy like only going for the kickstand could have three variations, one for each of the three tower rotations, that would get the robot to the correct position.

[Sasha]

Originally Posted by Jerry McManus

In regards to the random position of the center tower, I'm wondering if teams could use something like a program chooser to select a custom routine for autonomous mode.
...
Even a simple strategy like only going for the kickstand could have three variations, one for each of the three tower rotations, that would get the robot to the correct position.

That doesn't work. From the manual (Game Manual part II, p. 9):

After Teams place their Robots on the Playing Field and pre-load the Autonomous Balls, the Referees will rotate the Center Goal into 1 of 3 random positions with respect to the Alliance Station. A pair of IR beacons are located in the middle of the Center Goal pointing outward to help teams find the Alliance-specific Center Goal. Once the Center Goal is rotated, Teams may not touch or otherwise make adjustments to the Robots (per Rule <G18>).