Week 1 Observations

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by ozrien

I'm a little surprised how many teams did not update to the min legal firmware versions, which have been in the rules for some time (PCM and Talon since kickoff and PDP in an early team update).

I'm not surprised at all. Countless teams need help even to image the RoboRIO. If it doesn't fix a noticeable problem, it doesn't become a priority for teams. Even my team has shown up to competition with an outdated driver station version before.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I'm not surprised at all. Countless teams need help even to image the RoboRIO. If it doesn't fix a noticeable problem, it doesn't become a priority for teams. Even my team has shown up to competition with an outdated driver station version before.

Also this is the first year in which teams teams need to update PDP's Talon's and PCM's as well. That's a lot of things to keep up to date.

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I'm not surprised at all. Countless teams need help even to image the RoboRIO. If it doesn't fix a noticeable problem, it doesn't become a priority for teams. Even my team has shown up to competition with an outdated driver station version before.

Allen,

Having a legal robot should be every teams priority. Updating PCM, PDP, and Talon firmware is easier than tying your shoes.

[Lunitic2197]

So, just some observations I have made during the first day of competition at Howell....

- Co-Op Scores is the easiest way for points, any alliance that doesn't do this in quals drops pretty fast in rankings. However, both teams must be aware that this is going to happen and plan it out, similar to 2012
- Grabbing bins from the centers is often useless and just clogs the fields more. More often then not, they just fall over, and few teams are able to pick these up.
- Noodle Agreement 2.0: Both teams are waiting till either the co-op set/stack is complete, or there are 40 seconds left in the match, as to not make a mess on their own side, or in the way of their opponents as they work for the co-op.
- If you don't make it clear to your teammates to stay out of an area, you are very likely to lose your 5 stack with a bin.
- Teams that stack 4 high with container/litter are able to do much faster and with a lesser chance to fall then when doing 5/6 (107 is able to do up to 2 of these in a match, getting 60 points easily by themselves in later matches rather than in their first ones where they spent the entire match on one 5 tote stack, getting only 36 points.
- Totes going out the chute with nothing there will bounce almost anywhere and are unpredictable, just putting a drive train a few inches further than the length of a tote away from the chute usually keeps them falling right side up and often in an easy to access orientation.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

Allen,

Having a legal robot should be every teams priority. Updating PCM, PDP, and Talon firmware is easier than tying your shoes.

To be fair, I have a senior I have to yell at to tie his shoes on an hourly basis. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen him with tied shoes. Might need to do some "mentoring" there... or give him velcro.

[xXhunter47Xx]

I've noticed a couple things
-From what I've seen, teams have resorted to loading at the Human Player station rather than mining the Landfill
-Noodle throwing doesn't work out very well
-Step cans weren't as important as I thought (although I haven't watch any elim matches yet)
-Coopertition is pretty important

[dodar]

If you gather totes at the landfill, litter is the bane of your existence.

[Tweedy399]

I have definitely noticed today that litter makes a very large difference when going for co-op. Almost all alliances I have worked with have agreed to not throw litter until the co-op stack is scored. This is very helpful for both sides.

[lcoreyl]

1) the win-loss format adds (at least some) excitement to a low scorer if a team pulls a come from behind win. This year's low scorers are brutal...

2) teams need to know beforehand if they are sensitive to coop tote placement. If you know you can't reach far and can tell the other side, they can set and then poke it forward a little.

3) many teams have nice stable lifts but can't move stacks. They need to convince teammates to fetch totes to them on the platform.

[Johnbot]

What I've noticed from watching the Hatboro-Horsham district livestream (and the rest of the Dallas Regional after HH ended for the day):
- It is really easy to really mess up everything for yourself by dropping a full stack. I expected this, but it seems worse than I thought -> teams who normally score ~100 points barely reaching 30, etc.
- There aren't as many ambitious designs as I had expected - most every team went with the expected stackers, leading me to really applaud 148 for actually going through with the "tethered bot" idea.
- Do not let go of the door with a Tote stuck in it, you will get a yellow card.
- If you knock a tote onto the step, you may be penalized.
- If you knock over a co-op stack, you will almost definitely be penalized.
- Some teams mastered throwing Litter. Some have made great uses for it in Containers. Others did not.
- Auton is far more strategic than in previous years - the relatively low point value and relatively high difficulty makes doing other things in auton far more viable, often even desirable.
- Just being able to do something is hard. I had expected far more "pushers" -> robots who didn't try stacking, but instead just plowed for a bunch of two pointers, maybe making a stack of two.

-Teams should really try helping out their future alliance partners more with getting an auton that can at least drive/push something working. I imagine/hope many teams are doing that, but I still am seeing a very sizable teams at HH not even try to move.

[jwhite]

Originally Posted by Johnbot

-Teams should really try helping out their future alliance partners more with getting an auton that can at least drive/push something working. I imagine/hope many teams are doing that, but I still am seeing a very sizable teams at HH not even try to move.

This is a lot harder than it looks, and the incentives all push against experimenting. We had a two tote auto that worked on the practice field, but nearly destroyed 2052 when a turn bound up. The field is tiny, and it's easy to disrupt a can or the ever-so-precious path to the coopertition step.

Unless all 3 teams are certain to do it, the risks strongly outweigh the rewards. (Risk losing 40 points for a long shot at 4 points?!!? No thanks). And so as a result, few teams try, and few teams can do it, and so on...

I really think they ought to give 1 or 2 points for single robots or totes, and then a bonus for sets. That would change the incentive structure, I think.

Cheers,

Jeremy

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by jwhite

This is a lot harder than it looks, and the incentives all push against experimenting. We had a two tote auto that worked on the practice field, but nearly destroyed 2052 when a turn bound up. The field is tiny, and it's easy to disrupt a can or the ever-so-precious path to the coopertition step.

Unless all 3 teams are certain to do it, the risks strongly outweigh the rewards. (Risk losing 40 points for a long shot at 4 points?!!? No thanks). And so as a result, few teams try, and few teams can do it, and so on...

I really think they ought to give 1 or 2 points for single robots or totes, and then a bonus for sets. That would change the incentive structure, I think.

Cheers,

Jeremy

I agree.

Our elims alliance in Lake superior all moved forward in auto and didn't mess with totes or RC's in auto in fear of tipping a RC over. Those RC's are worth too much and we were limited to only be able to pick up the RC's when they are standing up vertically. We didn't take the risk we just stuck to driving forward in auto.

[lovelj]

Coop points are important but can skew rankings. Coop doesn't count in finals so stacking and autonomous becomes critical. In Palmetto, 3824 could reliably do two 42 pt stacks from the loading station. Teamed with 4454 who could do a 42 stack from the loading station and a 3rd that could do a small stack from the field. Finals were intense with four huge stacks on a tight field. Third pick (feel terrible not recalling their number) was critical, getting a bin from the step and creating a 4th stack in finals for a 150 to 133 win.

Also, tank drives struggled in Palmetto. Holonomic omnidirectionality with swerves or meccanums is critical. It's a very tight field!

[Mike Copioli]

Some recommendations after week 1 SFR (south Florida Regional). Below are a list of observed issues. These are in order of most common to least common

1. Update your DS software, PDP and PCM firmware to the required versions.

1. Check the seating depth of your PDP fuses, I cannot stress this enough. A good rule of thumb for this; If you can remove the fuse by hand, without the use of pliers, then it is NOT properly seated.

2. Robot Wiring - Teams should pull test every connection on the robot, specifically the Weidmuller connectors (push-in-type connector on PCM/VRM/PDP). Try to pull the wire out, you do not need to be gentle. If the wire can be removed without pressing the white button you should re-strip and re-seat as necessary. Also check the main battery, breaker and PDP terminals. Make sure these connections are not loose. You should not be able to move these connections without the use of tools.

3. Driver Station Computer - Disable all power management features of your DS computer. Specifically sleep and hibernate features. This can affect connectivity to the field as hibernate and sleep disable network connection and sometimes do not re-enable properly upon wake.

4. Disable all firewall and antivirus software. This can also affect field connectivity. A few teams had this issue.

5. Battery Quality - Not all SLA batteries are created equally. Some brands of batteries contain more pure lead, more consistent chemistry and lower internal resistance than others. From my experience, the MK and Genesis batteries seem to perform the best. They have a much lower internal resistance than some of the other brands out there. Having said that, all lead acid batteries degrade over time and use, so it is a good practice to test your batteries regularly.

6. PERFORM A COMPLETE ROBOT SYSTEMS CHECK BEFORE EACH MATCH!!!
If you are not doing this you are inviting failure. Catch issues before they cost your team and your alliance partners a match.

These are my observation made by both myself and Ken Gardner while CSAing at SFR.

[MrRoboSteve]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

1. Update your DS software, PDP and PCM firmware to the required versions.

Most teams at NL needed the software updates. The DS update is particularly important as the older version won't connect to the field. We bypassed several teams at Northern Lights during practice for this issue.

You can update the DS software and do items 3, 4, and 5 on Mike's list with the robot in the bag.