Week 1 Observations

[snoman]

1 noodles make little difference other than clogging up the field.
2 co op pts are huge almost every alliance try to do it. Lots succeed.
3 no 3 tote stacks in auto at the 2 events I was at. Not many pts scored in auto overall.
4 low scores overall. games in the single digits
5 teams communication with everyone playing prior to game is very important

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by snoman

3 no 3 tote stacks in auto at the 2 events I was at. Not many pts scored in auto overall.

You haven't been at the Northern Lights Regional. 2512 has made an auton tote stack in 5 of 6 matches so far.

[snoman]

I am in duluth missed that one. Working other event. The blue alliance shows 2 done in auto by 2512. Still very good !! Are you using encoders to drive straight?

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by snoman

I am in duluth missed that one. Working other event. The blue alliance shows 2 done in auto by 2512. Still very good !! Are you using encoders to drive straight?

That's because the blue alliance only has the first 30ish matches from Northern Lights.

As for driving straight, I tend to try to focus 10 to 12 seconds down the road. If you're asking how the robot does it, I have no clue, I'm just running the FMS and occasionally running ranking reports to Pit Admin.

[ice.berg]

Originally Posted by DareDad

You haven't been at the Northern Lights Regional. 2512 has made an auton tote stack in 5 of 6 matches so far.

I have no idea what you are talking about.....
But we might also bring 2 containers into the zone as well....

[snoman]

Is there a link to a video?

[ice.berg]

Originally Posted by snoman

Is there a link to a video?

Click the facebook link below
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V

[snoman]

Very cool! !!

[Koko Ed]

Not going to get much from week one. Teams were leaving in the middle of the day out of the blue (from what I'm told in Texas when a school closes kids on a field trip are required to go home ASAP unless they have an exception or have a hotel to stay at) so we had alot of surrogates for teams and we even had to have surrogates for surrogates. It was a mess.
It was a pleasure to watch beautifully designed robots like 987,118 and 148 at work. I took a video of one of 148's matches.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...44&pnref=story

[Bongle]

At least on the webcast, the lack of actual head-to-head competition between alliances really hurts the excitement level. The final 20 seconds of the match loses a lot of suspense when you're only worrying about a marginal increase in each team's score rather than swinging the match to a win or loss.

I love the highly visible black-on-white numbers.

[Ty Tremblay]

Smooth is faster than fast. Especially this year.

[g_sawchuk]

Use a tote horizontally parallel to the human player station to keep totes from falling on their sides when they come from the "chute door". Yes, chute door.

[Shrub]

-When resetting the field, throw all the blue noodles to the blue side and all the red noodles to the red side. Also, be kind to them. It's extemely easy to make them unusable: driving on them with Mechanum is the easiest way.
-At most, the best teams made two tall stacks with a bin on top, and once they finely tuned their strategy, maybe a stack of three as well.
-extremely common: throwing noodles in last 20 seconds, two people in HP zone.
-coopertition is so important. Since averages dictate rank, it's an easy way to rank higher. This is probably known.
-teams usually wait for coopertition to start flinging noodles. Don't fling them willy-nilly, they really dictate the first few matches.

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

Smooth is faster than fast. Especially this year.

Absolutely. I used "slow is faster" with my drive team. You have to finish a task to score. Do it right the first time instead of trying to rush.

Here are my observations and suggestions.
- Co-op can be a huge factor in your rankings, but you have to work together to achieve it. No litter and no landfill work near the middle of the field until that task is complete.
- I saw too many teams driving with totes in the air in an unstable configuration. Leave them on the ground and push them on the platform.
- Don't turn fast. Angular momentum is your enemy unless you have tote stablizers.
- The field is crowded. Have an alliance plan on where you will work.
- There is a way to make totes land flat on the floor. It's a bit hard to describe, but essentially you use the chute door to drag the back 3 inches of the tote as it exits the chute. Takes practice, but I highly recommend it.

David

[Ben Wolsieffer]

Originally Posted by D.Allred

There is a way to make totes land flat on the floor. It's a bit hard to describe, but essentially you use the chute door to drag the back 3 inches of the tote as it exits the chute. Takes practice, but I highly recommend it.

At Granite State we were told by the refs that we were not allowed to do this and that the chute door can't be closed at all until the tote has exited.