End Game Bonus/Autonomous Discussion

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Pavan Dave

The whole idea of a bonus, is a bonus. Something extra to help the game, not to make the game. And thinking along these lines you can see why the autonomous modes have no extra advantages. I do think that in autonomous the goals should count as 2 points but that is my opinion and I can clearly understand the purpose of the pieces being work only a single point.

hmmmm interesting.

Am I the only one who thinks autonomous is going to be both really easy and important?

Think about it.

You can place your balls basically wherever you want.

You can place your robot almost wherever you want.

The goal doesn't move.

= You can line up your robot and balls and knock them into the goal one at a time. No worries about robots getting in your way. Heck, you don't even need sensors. I'm sure a dead-reckoning robot could easily be programmed to drive a short distance and fire a kicker.

When you consider how chaotic the rest of the game will be (It will be really hard to control the balls with robots knocking into each other), the autonomous becomes a bonus itself.

[neshera]

As stated by someone else on another thread (I can't recall who or where, sorry):
Another incentive regarding autonomous is that if your robot nearest the opponent's goals fails to clear the three balls out in 15 seconds, you've left your opponent three balls sitting in front of his goal with only one defender.

[sircedric4]

Well, the end game could definitely be a big point changer except in the opposite way that most people are thinking. I've read over the rules several times and I still am seeing the following problem in the words as written. This is the question I am posing the second that Q&A comes online:

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2010 <G46> and <R19>Clarification

Does G46 / R19 apply to robots that are climbing the tower or in their FINALE CONFIGURATION? According to this rule, any ball that rolls under the robot while it is on the tower and above the floor would violate this rule as written and cause a penalty.

R19 states that in normal operation the ball may not penetrate more than 3 inches inside the FRAME PERIMETER. It does not use the NORMAL CONFIGURATION terminology and as tower climbing could be considered normal operation for this game, penalties could be occurred for any ball that happens to roll under a tower climbing robot.

I think the frame perimeter penalty is not meant to apply to tower climbing robots as that seems against the spirit of the competition, but clarification as early as possible will dictate whether we try and climb the tower or not. If our robot is just hanging there for any stray ball to penalize us, we’ll stay on the ground.

-----------------------------

Depending how that question comes out, we'll be ready to roll some balls under the suspended and elevated robots and deduct the points they thought they were getting. :-)

[EStokely]

sircedric4 said :
I think the frame perimeter penalty is not meant to apply to tower climbing robots as that seems against the spirit of the competition, but clarification as early as possible will dictate whether we try and climb the tower or not. If our robot is just hanging there for any stray ball to penalize us, we’ll stay on the ground.
/q
I didn't even consider this but as stated it is plausible. Hopefully a clarification will come out.

The item we are trying to come to grips with is, can we score 8 points in 20-30 seconds? especially if the goal is undefended? More importantly, can we score 9 points? beating any advantage hanging could possible give us?

We decided figuring out the ball shooter first, then the drive train before we try to determine the answer to the above. Its all speculation until we have a machine that can actually score.

Also for anyone who isn't planning on building a hump, do it. This thing is not as easy as you think to cross.

[TroyCDH]

With 20 (or more) seconds left...the 3 blue robots all head to the tower to hang. Can the red robots continue to shoot any balls still on the field towards the undefended goals? Will human players still have to re-enter balls to the field with the trident based on the math formula for time?

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by TroyCDH

With 20 (or more) seconds left...the 3 blue robots all head to the tower to hang. Can the red robots continue to shoot any balls still on the field towards the undefended goals? Will human players still have to re-enter balls to the field with the trident based on the math formula for time?

yes to all of the above.

[goodsky]

Originally Posted by =Martin=Taylor=

= You can line up your robot and balls and knock them into the goal one at a time. No worries about robots getting in your way. Heck, you don't even need sensors. I'm sure a dead-reckoning robot could easily be programmed to drive a short distance and fire a kicker.

I agree to a degree here. I am glad that the target will be stationary unlike last year, and we will not need to sense where the target or the balls are because we can anticipate basically the same position! This will be great!

There is one factor that I am a bit worried about. If you are in the far field, then you will have two alliance robots in front of you. Plus a likely near field strategy will be to simply move up to bump the ball into the goal. If that robot remains there, then they will be an obstacle to all the team members behind it. That being said, like they mention in the video, it would be nice to move out of the way after you do your deal in autonomous. A cool addition would be to have variable timers on all alliance robots for autonomous, that way you can coordinate your plans, so no balls get blocked.