2006 NASA/VCU Regional!

[DjAlamose]

........

(Condensed)

From what I see sparky is putting too much forward spin on the ball because the ball when it hits the ball arresters it spins up to the top of the goal and then because the goal is tilted forward, the ball falls out of the goal. The softer you hit those ball arrestors the better because the movement of the chains coming back to rest is enough to push those light poofs back out of the goal. It seems as though corner robots are ruling the field right now, but I still haven’t seen a whole lot of scoring... I hope it gets better tomorrow.

It certainly does look like there are allot of balls out on the field. I pretty sure the HPs are trying to score points by throwing the balls into the corner goals, with little success. But a few teams have gone back and forth to the drover station to reload their shooters. But one thing I did notice also is that allot of the shots that are being fired, they miss, often. Plus there’s the ever exciting auton with balls flying everywhere. But from what I have seen so far today, my view of the game completely changed and the strategies I have come up with are not as important as some of the ones that I thought would be useless.

HMM......

SHOOTING TOO HARD?

Isn't there a limit to how fast you can shoot? If Sparky is shooting at the speed limit, and all the balls are bouncing out, that would be a nice thing to know for some of the upcoming competitions. Maybe we need to turn down the muzzle velocity.

Looks like so far scoring is going to be a lot harder than I thought. What seems to me strange is how hard it is to score in the corner goals. I though robots going for the corners would be 75% or more effective, but it looks like they score less then one in four. Human players are scoring less than 1 in ten. High goal shooters are also about 1 in ten, with even the best high goal shooters getting no better than 1 in four. So it seems a good low goal scorer needs to be only about 60% efficient to beat a good high goal scorer.

Winning strategy might be to get at least 1 point in the corner goal in autonomous so you win the 10 point bonus, defend like hell, and then go for three robots on the ramp. 10+1+25 + 36 points.

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

HMM......

SHOOTING TOO HARD?

This is how it usually starts out, in the first days of the first few regionals, scoring is usually really low, but by Saturday most teams have figured it out. and by the last regionals you will see some very high scores. I am actually fairly impressed by the amount of scoring I have seen so far, No need to panic now . Remember back to last year... there was a big difference between tetra capping on thursday (where very few actually did) and Saturday.

[Ryan Dognaux]

It's just Thursday guys. Some of the teams might not even have their entire team or actual drivers there yet. Wait till matches get rolling tomorrow before we make any judgements about the game

Though I will say, excellent webcast thus far. Keep it up guys, I need some entertainment tomorrow!

[KTorak]

The Windows stream seems to be working well however the volume is really really low. Is there any way in windows media player to adjust it (that i dont know) or is it something with the broadcast?

[pyroslev]

I'm at VCU as scoring personnel. I'm on the center goal.

I scribbled the numbers of teams on my hand that were good overall and left an impression. Nine Teams were impressively performing.

The autonomous theory (auton is KEY) has held up. Simple autons have done better.

[Collin Fultz]

Are there three people announcing? One emcee, somebody introducing teams, and a game announcer (who I think is Mr. FIRST).

[Jack Jones]

Sorry if this is a repeat - haven't time to read thread

I hate to criticize, but the camera work on the web cast is not to my liking.
Maybe the camera man thinkers we want to see close ups of the bots playing rugby - but I'd rather see the wide shot - at least being able to see where shots go - hardly ever see the center goals.

PS: Better Dan? I was in a hurry out the door? No time for spall chek.

[DjAlamose]

Things that have happened so far that I found funny:

A robot got under another robot (because its chassis was up very high) and they spent the rest of the match trying to untangle themselves.

Allot of robots are shooting balls into the crowd

A robot dropped its battery as if to say it didn't need it.

[TD78]

I saw that battery out on the field too...always got to remember to zip tip those connectors together tightly! Seems like the field reset is pretty smooth and quick. Anyone know how many matches teams have at this regional? It's one of the biggest, if not the biggest I think, so it may not be as many as the other smaller regionals. It is still really early, but scores seem very low, with the exception of one match with 435 (I think it was them) who owned their center goal and their alliance scored 80ish? points. Scores should go up as teams get some matches under their belts.

-Tom

[Ryan Dognaux]

Just got in on the webcast today, something I've noticed -

Where's the real time scoring that was on the screen yesterday?

haha, I like how the Jay Z + Linkin Park was playing during the beginning of the Aim High video. Dave should just make his video to rap/rock

[DjAlamose]

Wow I dont have sound but that would have been cool. Why did they play the animation again? O well. They seem to be really picky about if you can or cant see the balls before auton. Good thing we've changed the material were using for our hopper.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by DjAlamose

Wow I dont have sound but that would have been cool. Why did they play the animation again?

So the crowd has some clue as to how the game is played. Is anyone else having problems with the webcast dying every 15 minutes or so?

[TD78]

I havent had any problems using windows media player.

They played the animation again because apparently there were audio problems the first time around and you couldn't hear the game description.

[DjAlamose]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

So the crowd has some clue as to how the game is played. Is anyone else having problems with the webcast dying every 15 minutes or so?

Im having no problems with the webcast, Im using nasa TV with WM format. Works great.

Also note the technical dificulties there having. I hope this gets sorted out and it doesn't affect everyone...