The FIRST day...

[Bruce C.]

Here are my observations from watching the VCU webcast, and a little of the Buckeye webcast:

Less than half of robots successfully use autonomous mode.

Line followers almost never work.

Dead reckoning nav with gyro assist seems most successful auto mode.

Strong 4 wheel drive robots have advantage, especially on the wire ramp.

Tall, high CG robots with stacking mechanisms get flipped a lot.

I saw only only one real attempt at stacking bins. It was not successful.
seems like all teams have determines that stacking bins is a waste of time
and effort.

Many robots are inactive on the field at all times. Some never leave the
starting box. Others die and then revive. Other than the obvious cases
where there were drive motors and batteries lying on the
field during the match, I'd guess there are a lot of breakers being tripped
from teams trying to get too much speed through tall gearing, and that batteries are
dying before the end of a match.

Not may robots seem to be going under the limbo bars, even the ones that are
low enough, and the way is open. This is puzzling. It would generally be
better to get to the other side of the field under the bar than over the
ramp. Much less power/energy required.

Robots with pnuematic tires bounced around a lot and lost traction
if their tires were full. Need to soften the tires for less bounce and more
traction.

I think a lot of teams that shipped their 'bots with line following auto code will be now scrambling to figure out the yaw rate sensor!

Bruce C.