What did everyone learn from this weekend's scrimmages?

[Uberbots]

Our shooter had some success this weekend, and with the control loop finally added to it, it would be a deadly combination.

In general though, some things learned:

if you stay still you lose
autonomous is the human player's dream when a robot gets caught in front of them
watch those super-cell penalties
dont throw the empty cell over the wall! (one team threw all 4 over)
the carpet doesnt help much in getting away from the wall; likewise it also makes getting balls right up against the wall very difficult
g14 is a killer.
typically only 1-2 super cells were scored per match, but i guess this will change after a couple weeks of regionals
empty cells get lost on the field
the middle of the field is where you want to be to avoid super cells and robot scoring. placing moon rocks in the center is insanely difficult
its very hard to keep track of the score, especially in those close-scoring matches
the super cell makes the difference (we went from 14 pts down to 1 pt up in the last second of the match)


those are my observations. I wouldnt give up on the shooter bots just yet, especially considering that if they are done right they have near 100% accuracy in those awkward situations.
(then again wouldnt anything done right have 100% accuracy?)

[Zholl]

The watchdog is BAD. We got there at 7:30, and didn't have a robot that would run on the field until 5 that afternoon, during the last run of the day before the field was torn down.

[Mr MOE]

Thanks for sharing everyone!!! Great learings we all will use.

[Rob]

We learned that KISS is IN this year! (well it was Valentine's day after all...)

Some means of maximizing your manuverability is also a good thing, it not only helps you comlete your tasks but makes it harder for opponents to score in your trailer.

Even if all you do is pick up balls and deliver them to the human player you can be a very effective machine this year.

Good luck everyone!

[robodude03]

I did notice that trying to keep score was very difficult unless one alliance is completely blowing out another. The one thing that I did find, as most of you did, was that dumpers play a big role in this game. That's not to say that shooters can't do the same, they just will have to shoot while moving, which makes it difficult. Anyhow, you will find a video of the Crenshaw Scrimmage below for your enjoyment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciR6aziPLQQ

[lynca]

The DiscoBots learned that # of Balls on Impact and last second super cell shots are keys to victory !

The seven balls in your robot at the start are the most important to dump quickly and accurately. From then on stay away from your opponents shooting stations and try to get all the empty cells in the fueling stations ASAP.

Our media team posted a few pictures of the Houston Scrimmage on the DiscoBots website. http://2009.discobots.org/node/34

Thanks to teams 441, 624, 1480, 2585, 2587 and 2664 for showing up.

[JamesBrown]

There is no question that simple robots will be extremely competetive this year. Many of the top teams have very simple robots.

In order of abillity to score it goes Robots that can dump alot quickly> Human Players> Robots that shoot one ball at a time.

A good traction control system is a huge advantage. Robots scoring in autonomous doesn't seem like it will be common.

[pitzoid]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Just as a heads up for everyone, this is in reference to the Scrimmage in CT with the official FIRST field in use.

The problem was something that FIRST had planned for, but not tested fully previous to the event.

This is somewhat true....

Delay was...

The issue was the WPA keys were added after inserting teams in random matches in practice was tested (a typical thing on practice day as most bots aren't ready in the morning). So what happened is the network configured right for this, but kept the orginal WPA key from the schedule. One code line fix, being tested now.

End of day issue was the team kicking the gigabit trunk line jigging the connectors, steps being taken now to remedy that.

Two very complex systems put together for the first time in a real world environment, I thought it did well overall....

More info soon.

[Ian S.]

I learned that small robots that only pick up moon rocks/empty cells and dump them to the payload specialists can be very important, because with the 6 bots and trailers on the field the human players have somewhat easy targets for tossing.

Like others I think that dumpers are better than shooters; however if the camera programming is good enough on the shooting teams I may be wrong.

Could some people post videos of scrimmages? I'd love to see some more around and I had trouble finding them through youtube.

[viking]

We held an unofficial scrimmage with 5 other teams this weekend, and our drivers and human players learned many valuable lessons. I would agree with previous posts, that this will be a slow moving game with many robots playing slow motion bumper cars.

The human player will be very important along with the empty cell and super cell. We didn't try to access any violations or take away any empty cells. I also agree that dumper robots were more effective then shooters.

[waialua359]

I hear all this talk about how team's are scoring but nothing on frequency and the success rate of human player's.
What's a typical score look like?

Anyone score 100+?

[flyingcrayons]

from what i heard, yes... someone scored 101...

i havent been able to watch the scrimmage myself, (stupid school filters), but, ill watch later...

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

or if they were not there, the rover wheel attached to the missing teams' trailers were used.

Elgin, can you explain what you mean by "rover wheel"? Is this something that goes onto he front of the trailer somehow?

[Mike8519]

Yes. If a robot does not show up a rover wheel is attached to the end of the tongue of the trailer in a perpendicular orientation to the tongue.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Mike8519

Yes. If a robot does not show up a rover wheel is attached to the end of the tongue of the trailer in a perpendicular orientation to the tongue.

Yep. Don, you might want to check Bill's Blog.