Palmetto Regional Week 0.5

[hawktomatoes]

It was cool seeing the robots compete for the first time at an actual regional! A lot of interesting things happened. There's no doubt this is going to be an eventful year

[Green Potato]

With what appears to be the end of Day 1, I have compiled all the match results into a spreadsheet, found here. I've computed winner and looser averages, and percentiles as well. The only thing I haven't captured are the breach totals. (The capture total for today: 0)

So far, the average score appears to be 59 for the whole field, 70 for the winning alliances, and 45 for the loosing alliances.

[alephzer0]

Not a single tower was captured from what I saw.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

It's interesting that many teams seem very focused on defeating the defenses and just ignore the tower till the 4 defenses are down.

It is much, much easier to drive over something than to pick up and score a high goal, and they are worth the same number of points. It is also much easier to get the breaching ranking point than it is to get the capture ranking point.

[Landonh12]

Does anyone have a picture from the driver station showing the visibility of the field? I think it would be helpful to all of us to see a worst-case scenario (including Porticullus) so that we can judge the sight problems that a lot of us have been a little worried about.

[Duncan Macdonald]

Originally Posted by hawktomatoes

It was cool seeing the robots compete for the first time at an actual regional! A lot of interesting things happened. There's no doubt this is going to be an eventful year

Did I just walk in on a Turing test?

[DuPiMan]

Best of luck to all the teams!

I'm really grateful for the webcast, it makes our scout training possible. Unfortunately it is harder for the scouts when the camera keeps moving, is anyone recording from a static, full field camera? If so, when will the recording be uploaded?

Many Thanks!

[Jalerre]

Originally Posted by Landonh12

Does anyone have a picture from the driver station showing the visibility of the field? I think it would be helpful to all of us to see a worst-case scenario (including Porticullus) so that we can judge the sight problems that a lot of us have been a little worried about.

While I don't have a picture, I can say that visibility was a major issue for our team. Some of our defense selection was based just on visibility. The main problem is the category C defenses, especially the drawbridge. The portcullis wasn't too bad because it is partially transparent. What surprised me was that more teams weren't using their human player as a spy to help navigate while in the opponent's courtyard. Hand signals were really helpful. And a camera is basically a necessity for this game.

[JohnFogarty]

If your robot is short you can't see it behind the Sally port let alone the other tall defenses.

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by Boltman

Match 52 RED almost captured so close...down to 1 strength all three bots challenge with one having a boulder could not pop it in.

That was painfully close. We were a little left on our low goal shot. I think someone will capture before qualifications end.

In general, this game is fun to play but a wee bit rough on robots. The field itself has also taken a beating - especially the Cheval de Frise. These robots can easily overpower the polycarb. I believe FIRST is looking into reinforcement options.

I know a lot of people are curious about line of sight. My advice is to choose your defense wisely. We stick with all low defenses. They are still hard for most robots and field visibility in greatly improved. With two drawbridges and two portcullis gates, you can't even see the timer clock on the other end.

The clear barriers between the defenses and on the batter are very tough to see. Lots of folks hitting or getting stuck on these shields.

The wood defenses don't give you a good indication of how the re,al field reacts. To me, the Cheval de Frise, Rough Terrain, and Moat are tougher. The Portcullis is much easier.

Saturday is going to be interesting. Not too much defensive play yet. Elimination rounds

David

[jajabinx124]

Originally Posted by alephzer0

Not a single tower was captured from what I saw.

For sure tomorrow we should be able to see a capture in elims, but yeah definitely tougher than imagined. With coordination before matches with your alliance members it certainly is possible to capture the tower (and today there were so many times were it was so close..)

Week 1 should be better with captures but IMO, I don't think it'll be that noticeably better. This week 0.5 regional should give many teams the strategical ideas they need for quals matches during week 1, but again the challenge of breaching, capturing, and winning is overwhelming and will require a load of luck for it to happen during quals.

[Landonh12]

I think the strategy for teams that are capable of scoring boulders is damaging a defense every two cycles. In practice we ran 8 cycles in a timed practice period with a defensive robot (most ideal situation with a boulder sitting just outside the low bar - not in the same spot every time, though).

One robot can rack up a lot of points in a match by themselves if they follow this plan. Score a boulder, run under the low bar to grab a boulder, then cross a defense. 10 point cycles. If a robot is capable of doing 8 cycles, that's 80 points in tele-op by themselves.

I understand that there won't be many robots that can do this, but if you look at teams like 179 at this event, they could most definately get close to doing something similar. Especially in the right alliance.

Most teams are just focusing on the defenses at the moment. Remember, this is a week 0.5 event. A lot of teams tend to learn from regionals and make changes when it's their turn to compete, especially for teams that attend multiple regionals/district events.

I'm sure we will see a tower capture once every few matches in the coming weeks.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I'm curious if any teams at Palmetto are using 'birds eye' view cameras as a part of their driver stations? (Tall poles with a camera mounted on it)

It would seem that it could help the visibility problem in certain situations but we don't have a full field to test this against.

This game looks crazy rough and it's not even week 1 yet. Can't wait to see how our robot holds up.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Landonh12

One robot can rack up a lot of points in a match by themselves if they follow this plan. Score a boulder, run under the low bar to grab a boulder, then cross a defense. 10 point cycles. If a robot is capable of doing 8 cycles, that's 80 points in tele-op by themselves.

I'm sure we will see a tower capture once every few matches in the coming weeks.

This is the most logical sequence that I envision teams would be doing. Less wasted motion and accomplishing both at once.
Unless of course if youre like Team 118 that can Dukes of Hazard just about anything. No need come back via the low bar, other than not trying to wear out your robot.

[Jalerre]

Originally Posted by waialua359

This is the most logical sequence that I envision teams would be doing. Less wasted motion and accomplishing both at once.
Unless of course if youre like Team 118 that can Dukes of Hazard just about anything. No need come back via the low bar, other than not trying to wear out your robot.

I think the main reason that teams aren't relying on this strategy is that they want to guarantee that they will get the ranking point for breaching. Picking up and scoring boulders can take some time. It's better to at least get the one ranking point for breaching rather than attempting to get two/getting extra points for scoring boulders but risking getting no ranking points at all. At least at Palmetto, if you can breach, the points you get for crossing defenses is usually enough to get you the win.