Week 0 Discussion

[Louisiana Jones]

Originally Posted by cjl2625

Oh god, under defense, high goal from the middle of the field will be a nightmare. Even if I write vision code, by the time we're aligned, a defender will have pushed us half way across the field.

Exactly! I think a large number of teams are underestimating the importance of having a robot on your alliance playing defense. In my opinion teams are to optimistic about scoring boulders and aren't taking into account how difficult it will be to a) get to the low goal with a defender in the way, b) shoot from any unprotected position before a courtyard defender can ram you or get in front of you and block your shot.

[Hgree56]

Here in Indiana, Team 1741 hosted a fantastic event for roughly a dozen teams! All teams did well in what they tried. Best part was all the interesting designs. No two teams had really similar robots.

Thank you 1741 for such a great day!

[Hitchhiker 42]

Originally Posted by cjl2625

Aiming is hard.

High goals are really, really hard.

[MooreteP]

From what I saw at the Suffield Shakedown:

Crossing a defense in Autonomous is a must do for the 10 points.
Spybot scoring could be worth the same, but if you can do that, why not work on crossing a defense too for 20 points total.

The high goal may only be worth it in autonomous, after that, the 3 point gamble of missing a shot against a defense (with a better view of the action) and extending your cycle times cuts into your ability to capture the tower and get the Ranking points or 25 in the Playoffs.
A sweeper Robot could help to weaken a tower quickly.

Breaching 4/5 defenses is a good idea for the Ranking points or 20 in the Playoffs.

An actual match seemed pretty quick, given the number of tasks that are possible time vampires. I think you’ll be lucky to get in 4 cycles and capture, let alone scale.

Scoring in the low goal seemed trickier than expected with the sloped batter. A good strategy may be to shoot it up the batter with enough speed and proper aim. Positioning and aiming is difficult across the field, that’s where a camera on the Robot can help.
Like the balls in Rebound Rumble, boulder characteristics will change. Many get crushed under Robots on the floor and some defenses.

The Drawbridge may be a very popular choice this year as it blocks the drive teams' vision, but that cuts both ways. Nobody manipulated the drawbridge or sally port from the neutral zone today, but that may change. The ramparts and cheval de frise take time and are difficult.

Some Robots died on the Outer Works. Make sure your connections are tight and sturdy.
Robots that get stuck on a defense can be freed by an alliance partner.

I am sure this will change, but I think that an effective alliance will have one Robot dedicated to breaching, and two Robots dedicated to weakening the tower.
The breaching Robot could hold open the drawbridge or sally port, while the scoring robots cross them from the neutral zone to score.
You've got to outscore the opposing alliance to get your precious Ranking Points.
In the Playoffs, teams may gamble on a defensive Robot, at the expense of possibly not capturing a tower. But if you've weakened the tower by 3 or four in autonomous, that may not be an issue. Then again, if by the CMP the towers start at 12........ Oh dear, I'm headed down the rabbit hole.

Can't wait to see how Stronghold is played by week 5.

[hardcopi]

We had a small practice event with out 10 teams from SW Michigan today. Only one pair of bots tried the drawbridge, with one putting it down from the other side and then backing through with the other bot following.

Our bot had no problem hitting the high goal, but only from one spot. Our cameras get in on Monday so that should help. I don't think we will have a problem with the high goal.

Had 2 of the bots leave scattered parts all over the field as wheels and gears shattered coming down off the moat or rough terrain.

We had a issue with starting to turn before our robot "landed" from launching itself over an obstacle. If we hit and begun our turn before the from landed we'd end up sliding sideways.

Our top match was 72 points, and that is with one of the robots missing a major component and without cameras. I'm thinking week 1 will be higher than anyone expects and not like previous years.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by MooreteP

From what I saw at the Suffield Shakedown:

Scoring in the low goal seemed trickier than expected with the sloped batter.

At Suffield, low goal scoring was made more difficult than it should be because the balls were not cycled out once they were scored. So after ~5 low goal scores it became nearly impossible to score any more because the low goal was clogged up.

[Mat]

From what I saw at Week zero in Merrimack I can say that it looks like high goal shooting is a rarity. I saw 2 teams that were actually able to score a high goal, and only once per game, and accuracy was terrible. Additionally almost everyone is going low, and it looked like only 2 teams there were capible of scaling the tower, although I did not see it attempted. I also saw no one cross every defence. Past that feild reset took ages, and queueing a pain that needs some refining. I think that the first week of competitions should plan for many delays. Another thing I noticed was it appears that the FMS system is all new networking hardware, and it also needs a bit of refining, but I think that the combination of that and new radios may result in less bandwidth restrictions for next year. I am very excited to see what this season brings.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

At Suffield, low goal scoring was made more difficult than it should be because the balls were not cycled out once they were scored. So after ~5 low goal scores it became nearly impossible to score any more because the low goal was clogged up.

This was only the case after about five boulders were in the goal.

We were not allowed to cut into the diamond plate for cycling the boulders or allow for proper human player stations.

However, even when there were few boulders in the low goals, scoring in them was still problematic. It appeared that the intakes that were being reversed did not have the force or speed needed to push the boulders into the goals, especially with the incline of the batter.

[holygrail]

First off, I'd like to thank the Lee's Summit R7 Alliance of 1730, 1986, and 1987 for hosting teams from the Kansas City area today. They were gracious hosts as always and the pulled pork sandwiches were tasty.

A few observations.
1) Stuff breaks...a lot. The defenses are punishing, especially the ramparts, rock wall, and moat. The rough terrain isn't too bad, but if you have an arm, lift it up first. You pretty much have to hit them with speed and the robot takes a bit of a beating. We built about the toughest drive train we ever have and it was still hard on the robot... And that was without defense. Better have a good pit crew.

2) High goals are difficult and rare, but impressive when a team can pull it off. I say this on observation and not from experience because we decided to focus on the low goal.

3) Scaling seems very difficult. We didn't see any scaling today but there were bots that were planning on it. If other teams are like ours, it is just tough to work out all the kinks, especially if you have a low bar robot.

4) It seems like this game has become unexpectedly tough later in the build season. It was hard to ignore the fact that fewer teams than usual were present and ready to go today. Maybe they all just have their own practice facilities now, but I suspect teams just weren't ready. The devil is in the details and with so many compact robots, space becomes an issue. That said, for us it was absolute gold to be able to get on a well built practice field and give it a go.

5) It is going to be a war of attrition. Teams who have robots that are built tough and easy to repair will have a definite advantage. Reliability and consistency are about the two most important things, and they may be hard to come by in this game.

6) Stronghold will be fun to watch. There is a lot for the robots to do and a lot of room for oohs, aahhhhs, wows, and oooooh no's!

Good luck to all teams!

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

At Suffield, low goal scoring was made more difficult than it should be because the balls were not cycled out once they were scored. So after ~5 low goal scores it became nearly impossible to score any more because the low goal was clogged up.

That was our issue. We scored the most low goals in a single match to my knowledge which was 10. Since we had a articulating shooter what I was doing was driving up and shooting the balls over the other balls. Half the time it went through the other end which they did count but is obviously not something I would ever do in a real match. The robots that relied on pushing the balls could only score 2 or 3 before it would just bounce out.

[Dan Petrovic]

It is very easy for robots to drive on top of and get caught on stray balls on the field.

The dividers on the Batter are clear and impossible to see from the driver's station. Almost every team attempting to challenge or even score in the low goal struggled to avoid them.

The Drawbridge is far flimsier than we expected, so teams that are practicing with plywood should either build a new one out of polycarbonate or be prepared to make adjustments at competitions.

One last very important note: Queueing and field reset is very challenging and time consuming due to shuffling of defenses. Please be patient with the event staff and honor their requests. A lot of thought has gone into the logistics between each match and they are doing the best they can, especially at events with limited space.

Drive teams must be in the queuing area two matches prior to their own in order to select defenses for their match.

[logank013]

I'm not sure if anyone has a video of these, but 2 (or 3?) times today at 1741's event, 1747 was able to do an auto that crossed a defense and shot into the high goal. I was really impressed with their robot. Also, in one of those cases, it seems like the code was written to spin the robot clockwise until it found the tower. The robot did like a 340 degree spin and found the tower. then proceeded to shoot and make the high goal shot. It was funny to see the robot do the fun spin. It was even funnier to see the faces on some people when they saw the robot made the shot.

[Ginger Power]

Just got done with the Centurion-Krawler Event. Nothing but praise for the host teams. It was incredibly well run, one of the best non-competition event I've been to, and I haven't been to a bad one.

Tons of notes and comments about Stronghold:

- Climbing is so rare! Only 3 teams out of 20 had a climber, and only 2 look like they'll work.

- The event I attended had many of the top robots in MN attending and none of them dissipointed.

- Almost every team I talked to was in a better position than they normally are. I think this is a testament to MNFIRST's growth and all of the off season training events that are being held.

- 4607 broke the field in like 8/12 matches that we were in (Sorry 2052, and 2472!) Better watch out Lake Superior and North Star field reset crews. (Our driver likes to call his driving style DoH - Dukes of Hazard. We caught >1 foot of air on multiple occasions)

- Accurate high goal shooting wasn't terribly rare, but that's probably due to the quality of robots at the event. I'd say there were 4-5 teams out of 20 that could effectively score in the high goal, and things got much better throughout the day.

- Low goal is the way to go for almost every team. 2574 cycled low goal all day and they were very effective.

- Damaging the defenses has been blown way out of proportion. It's really not that difficult. We'll see how that changes under heavy defense, but there is a lot of incentive to focus on offense during quals.

- There were a large number of teams that could probably breach on their own if that's all they focused on. Breaching will be way easier than weakening the tower.

- The hardest non-gated defense for auton is the ramparts. It'll turn your robot sideways in a hurry.

- There wasn't a single team at the event that could pull open the Sally Port or Drawbridge from the neutral zone.

- Driving from the opponent's Courtyard to the neutral zone through the gated defenses is harder than you'd think. Most teams seemed to benefit from going over the rough terrain or Rockwall on the way back.

- The hardest defenses for most teams seemed to be the moat, and the portcullis

- Inspecting bumpers is going to be rough. Really rough... inspecting the software versions will also be rough. The PDP doesn't show up on the driver station so you actually have to connect to the roborio to check it out. That's annoying.

- Connection issues are a real thing. The robots take a serious beating (seemingly more so than 2014) and the electrical system is affected. I think we'll see a ton of robots dead on the field for 30 seconds while their radio resets. I'll bet the biggest offender is the 10 and 20 amp fuses in the PDP. With so many teams using the same PDP as in 2015, it'll be a problem. You shouldn't be able to pull those fuses out by hand, and most robots that I inspected you could. I think the plastic that holds them in has deformed, which leaves many teams in a bad situation.

- Good luck Refs, glad I'm an Inspector

- Karthik was justifiably terrified. There are in fact a disproportionate number of low bar robots. None of which were only low bar robots.

- There seemed to be a ton of design variety even considering the height restriction that most teams gave themselves. If I had to break them down into 2 categories they would be: Articulating arm with wheels to intake and shoot (Similar to our GreenHorns Ri3D Robot), and full side intakes that load catapults (Similar to Snow Problem's Ri3D Robot).

- If you're still reading you deserve a cookie

- Stronghold has taken the best parts of the last 4 games and combined it into 1 super-game. It'll be a blast. I'm pumped.

[team-4480]

Originally Posted by MecaNaught

Thank you to those that came

We had a really fun time at your event! It was our first time doing a Week Zero event and we absolutely loved it. All of your volunteers were super helpful!

At the event, our we found issues with:

- Ramparts! They seem to be the devil in disguise! They look so easy until it turns your 70 degrees into the next defense!

- As others have said, the high goal is super hard to line up. We didn't even have a defender on us either. I will definitely have to work on some vision if we want to be more consistent.

-Speaking of vision, at the event, I could not find one team that was using vision. There was about 12 teams there and I thought I would find at least one team with a good vision system.

- The Portcullis, Sally Port, and Drawbridge were neglected as if they were poisonous or something.

- The Spy Human player was actually super useful for lining up shots when obstacles were in the way. I thought the Spy was going to be useless but was proven quite wrong.

- We need some more sensors so our drivers can be more informed on whether or not the ball is in and how far we are away we are.

- I think we should pick only low defenses when possible because the Driver's vision was super annoying. We occasionally accidently hit another friendly robot because the big drawbridge was in the way. Cameras can only do you so good....

[KrazyCarl92]

I was watching the action at Suffield Shakedown briefly today. I noticed that at least one set of the ramparts used was actually backwards. Just wanted to throw that out there for any teams relying on the scrimmage for their testing. Our team definitely noticed a significant impact that the direction of the ramparts (I.e. which side is up/down) has on how it should be crossed.

Particularly if you plan on crossing this one in auto, it should be done with the proper direction of the ramps.