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Unread 05-03-2006, 09:50
Travis Hoffman's Avatar Unsung FIRST Hero
Travis Hoffman Travis Hoffman is offline
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FRC #0048 (Delphi E.L.I.T.E.)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Warren, Ohio USA
Posts: 4,047
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Re: Week 1: Thoughts, comments

Observations based upon participation in New Jersey Regional:

1. 25 is extremely good, but they were made even better by the facts that

A.) It seemed no one ever once tried to prevent them from loading up on human player ammo all day - starve an HP loaded only launcher and it's as tame as a kitten. If you are on offense, I highly doubt all 3 robots will be in position to score points, so use one of them to hinder HP loader bots from refilling while they are on defense.

B.) Few seemed to grasp the idea that low shooter + getting between the shooter and the center goal with your robot = not many balls getting into the center goal. Some teams aimed to disrupt 25 by setting up in the near starting position and running into their SIDE during autonomous, but that does no good when the robot has an auto-adjusting camera controlled turret to correct any side to side perturbations. There were numerous teams at that event who could have beaten 25 (and other autonomous low shooters who move to a fixed position on the field) to their launch position, gotten in FRONT of them, and blocked every single shot. I would have enjoyed a chance at accomplishing this feat, but alas......

2. ......THE *RANDOM* MATCH LIST GENERATOR IS STILL A PILE OF JUNK. We didn't face or ally with 25 once (a desirable thing for any newcomer to the New Jersey Regional to do, you would think - a major disappointment for our team), yet some teams faced them 2 times. FIX THE PROBLEM!!!!!

3. FIRST better get their act straight SOON when it comes to the numerous field control and scoring glitches, or you are going to have a mass uprising on your hands. I returned home to Warren, OH at 3:25 AM after driving back from New Jersey. This late return was due in no small part to the HOURS of delays teams and spectators had to endure from the ridiculous amount of restarts and field downtimes. This is at least the 2nd year in a row these problems have been permitted to leak into the competition season, especially during the first few weeks, and it seems even worse this year. FIRST, HATCH TECHNOLOGIES, and whomever else is responsible for developing the field control systems - FIX THE PROBLEM, or find the number of registrants for 1st week regionals dwindle away and die. WE ARE NOT YOUR GUINEA PIGS!!!! My registration fees are not there for you to spend on people who develop buggy, regional experience and audience interest-degrading software and hardware. If you do not do more to improve your quality control and accelerate your testing and debug, you may find those fees absent from future seasons. I will gladly pay a lot less money to someone who isn't FIRST to attend more offseason events like the IRI where the probability of playing on fully debugged fields is 80000% greater. This is one area where I will be more gracious when FIRST starts being more professional. I can only imagine how these numerous problems could hurt teams who work their hardest to scrape together enough dough to attend a single Week 1 event.

4. This game has the potential to be quite fun. Offense will get better (much better, in our case) as the weeks go on as teams improve their shooters and start to understand the game better. Thankfully, defense is back with a vengeance, albeit perhaps too much so. I witnessed a lot of tough pushing and blocking - no free license to score for the offensive powers this year! You gotta earn it, and that's wonderful. Lots of high CG and/or short wheelbase robots are tipping over on the ramp or even through normal operation in the middle of the playing field, self inflicted or otherwise. I did see a fair amount of what I would define to be long distance ramming and penalizable (is that a word?) tipping that wasn't flagged. The 25 driving up on 293, 293 backing up to avoid tipping them (which I'm pretty sure they didn't legally have to do if they didn't want to - why should you have to limit your movements to protect a robot that mistakenly drove up on you and not the other way around?), 25 driving underneath 293 seconds later, and 25 continuing to drive forward until 293 fell over sequence in the elims raised a few eyebrows in my area of the stands when no flags were thrown. I didn't see it, but 48's robot also apparently got under 56 and accidentally tipped them in a qualifying match without penalty (we apologized to them following the match). With the tipping rules, I believe intent isn't a factor. It's black and white - if you initiate the act of having one robot's drivetrain be on top of another's and a tipped robot results, you must deal with the consequences. If you get under another bot and push them over, you receive the penalties. If you drive up on top of another robot and you end up on your butt as a result, tough cookies - don't do that next time!

5. Why in the world do so many HP's chuck balls up toward the corner goals like crazy during the 2nd and 3rd periods when they are on offense? Does anyone realize how few of those balls actually make it into the goals? All you are doing is giving opposing backbots with ball collectors more opportunities to load up and use those unrealized points against you. It also clutters the audience's view and makes it harder to see where robot shots are coming from. Save your balls in your ball corrals for human player robot loading or feeding directly to the backbot(s) during defense. And remember, balls in your ball corral are balls that can't ever be used by your opposition against you. In the 4th period, with a relatively uncluttered field and clear line of sight, that's when you start firing away at those corner goals. And make sure the balls are ROLLING, not bouncing, well before they reach the ramp.

6. Winning autonomous is absolutely critical to an alliance's overall chances of success during a match. I think the proof is in the pudding here. Most people have been saying this for months, and the early regional action is proving their predictions true.


Despite all the problems, the New Jersey Regional proved to be a fun, spirited albeit way too freaking long event filled with a bunch of great teams. Our team is very excited heading into Buckeye next week. I have heard, however, that the New Jersey field is scheduled to be shipped to Cleveland next. This makes me cringe (although I'm sure all the fields have been experiencing problems). I hope the problems plaguing the field control systems and causing stress for all the valiant volunteers responsible for keeping it limping along are minimized.
__________________

Travis Hoffman, Enginerd, FRC Team 48 Delphi E.L.I.T.E.
Encouraging Learning in Technology and Engineering - www.delphielite.com
NEOFRA - Northeast Ohio FIRST Robotics Alliance - www.neofra.com
NEOFRA / Delphi E.L.I.T.E. FLL Regional Partner

Last edited by Travis Hoffman : 05-03-2006 at 11:27.
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