Silicon Valley Regional 2008

[eugenebrooks]

It was an unfortunate accident, these things happen.

Eugene

[JB987]

Originally Posted by Cory

We rounded the lane divider and accidentally clipped 1280 with a trackball in our possession as they were beginning to raise their elevator, and unfortunately they fell over.

Cory,
You may recall 987 found themselves in same situation last week and made it through 3-4 matches with yellow to finish seeded #1...hang in there and good luck tomorrow...

[Francis-134]

Team 190 hopes to soon post a link to our "Handy Dandy Rules Reference" that we have shown to various referees, judges, and members of the GDC.

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

The entire robot never fully crosses any lane markers; only part of it does. It's exactly the same legality as partially driving your robot across a lane marker and then backing up. You won't get a penality because you never fully left the previous quadrant.

Forgive me if I'm missing something (I haven't actually seen it but I hope to tomorrow), but how does 190 retract this hurdling mechanism without moving it in a clockwise direction, particularly with respect to the opposing finish line(which they have already CROSSED)? I would imagine that even after dropping the ball, the mechanism would relax in a clockwise motion across the opposing finish line thus breaking <G22>. Am I making sense, because this is something I thought about before but never tried to communicate?

[Woody1458]

I just got home from the competition and just wanted to congradulate all award winners

List from top of my head

Woodie Flowers - Mentor of Apes of Wrath
Xerox creativity - WPI 190 with the ever-debated rotator (obvious)
Design - 1280 (awsome pit)
Website - MVRT 115 http://www.mvrt.com/2008/clear.php

Theese teams won awards but I forgot which one got which

Alaska team (forgot name/number Sorry!)
Funky Monkies
TKO
GRT 192 (The award for cool robot gizmos that you can explain in conciese terms)

I forgot who won volunteer (Sorry!)

Great competitions out there. Alliance selections are going to be very interesting, as a lot of great robot teams are in the lower rankings (254 is 35th, 114 is 38th etc). Oh and just my callouts to interesting things I saw...

I liked 973's method of ball removal
2144 pulled of the counterfacing omnis (looks like <> from underside) spectacularly
254 didn't show up to some of matches today! Why Cory?
1280's pit was awsome, being right next to it was..... humbling
Apparently there was a fire on the field while I was in the pits! I always miss the good stuff... (Sorry to the team who it happend to)
Not much as far as hybrid, I didn't see much as far as knoking balls off.

BTW - As pit captain I'm sure there was a lot of cool stuff that happend that I didn't see, so don't hate If I missed you!

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

Forgive me if I'm missing something (I haven't actually seen it but I hope to tomorrow), but how does 190 retract this hurdling mechanism without moving it in a clockwise direction, particularly with respect to the opposing finish line(which they have already CROSSED)? I would imagine that even after dropping the ball, the mechanism would relax in a clockwise motion across the opposing finish line thus breaking <G22>. Am I making sense, because this is something I thought about before but never tried to communicate?

I'm not sure what exactly you're picturing, but once 190 releases the ball, they just immediately pick it up again without moving anything in a clockwise direction. When "relaxing" their mechanism, they are in their own home stretch and the mechanism is in their own area after the home stretch. Or am I not getting you?

[Woody1458]

Originally Posted by Woody1458

1458 is pumped for SV as our first regional. I always love that San Jose weather!

so much for the weather......

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

Forgive me if I'm missing something (I haven't actually seen it but I hope to tomorrow), but how does 190 retract this hurdling mechanism without moving it in a clockwise direction, particularly with respect to the opposing finish line(which they have already CROSSED)? I would imagine that even after dropping the ball, the mechanism would relax in a clockwise motion across the opposing finish line thus breaking <G22>. Am I making sense, because this is something I thought about before but never tried to communicate?

We have two electrical slip-rings in our turret that allow us to do an infinite number of rotations without ever having to go in reverse. The turret should never move in a clockwise direction, with the possible exception while placing the ball on our overpass in the endgame.

[ReaperGoat]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

We have two electrical slip-rings in our turret that allow us to do an infinite number of rotations without ever having to go in reverse. The turret should never move in a clockwise direction, with the possible exception while placing the ball on our overpass in the endgame.

the slip rings are pretty intense ...is 190 going to do anything about keeping the ball from rolling forward after the quick drop?

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by ReaperGoat

the slip rings are pretty intense ...is 190 going to do anything about keeping the ball from rolling forward after the quick drop?

I would think that coordinated alliance partners would be a good solution to this. It seemed that every time they dropped and it rolled away, their alliance partners just kept running laps and minding their own business. I'm sure that strategy will change in the eliminations.

[shock190]

Originally Posted by ReaperGoat

the slip rings are pretty intense ...is 190 going to do anything about keeping the ball from rolling forward after the quick drop?

Yes, the reason we have been struggling with that is that the proper extension position for the drop is not set yet. When it is in the proper position, it drops right into the grasp of our blocking arm, which pins it against the lane divider as soon as the ball hits the ground, both getting it stable to be grabbed again by the suction cup, and to keep other robots from knocking it away. This problem should be resolved sometime tomorrow morning however. Most of our problems at the moment are in the same area, missing sensor values. Once this thing gets some more testing time under its belt, we'll be much, much faster.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Woody1458

254 didn't show up to some of matches today! Why Cory?

Do you literally mean not show up? I had to leave for an hour and a half to go to a class this morning, but as far as I know we were on the field for every single one of our matches.

If by "show up" you mean perform, then yes, we didn't show up for some of our matches. We had to chase some gremlins that made their way into the bot during assembly yesterday. We passed inspection literally one minute before our first match, so we had no time to test anything.

Our drivers are starting to get more comfortable with the speed the game is being played at, so hopefully we'll do much better tomorrow.

[Woody1458]

Originally Posted by Cory

Do you literally mean not show up? I had to leave for an hour and a half to go to a class this morning, but as far as I know we were on the field for every single one of our matches.

If by "show up" you mean perform, then yes, we didn't show up for some of our matches. We had to chase some gremlins that made their way into the bot during assembly yesterday. We passed inspection literally one minute before our first match, so we had no time to test anything.

Our drivers are starting to get more comfortable with the speed the game is being played at, so hopefully we'll do much better tomorrow.

Yea, being in the pit nearly all of the day most of my info is by word of mouth, I geuss i was told 254 didn't compete in _____ match, and took that as didn't put their robot on the field. And I can't wait for the issues to be resolved, I loved seing the videos of 968 in San Diego and was/am excited to see the design in person.

[Fred Sayre]

Originally Posted by EricH

Which rules? And definition of Hurdle or Hurdling? (There is a difference.)

HURDLE: When a TRACKBALL CROSSES a FINISH LINE while passing above the OVERPASS
and then contacts either the floor or another ROBOT before re-contacting the originating ROBOT.

So the ball crosses the finish line, but is still touching the machine which does not meet this definition of a hurdle. This definition indicates that at least the machine has to lose contact with the ball before the ball has completely crosses the finish line.

Also an interesting issue comes from the crossing/crossed issue.
CROSSING: The act of a TRACKBALL or ROBOT passing through the plane defined by a line (i.e.
LANE MARKER or FINISH LINE) when it is projected vertically upwards. A TRACKBALL or
ROBOT shall have CROSSED a line when all parts of the object, while traveling in a counterclockwise
direction, have completely passed through the plane.

So I understand how the robot can still be "Crossing" into the next zones, but how does it not violate G22 crossing into the zone just previous to the machine? The machine is considered to have crossed that line for the purposes of the start of the match, and since it has not completely crossed into any zone except its home zone, breaking the plane into the previous zone should be a G22 violation.

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

We have two electrical slip-rings in our turret that allow us to do an infinite number of rotations without ever having to go in reverse. The turret should never move in a clockwise direction, with the possible exception while placing the ball on our overpass in the endgame.

I was picturing it wrapping around the barrier, I now really want to see this thing.