Week 1 Analysis

[Laaba 80]

Originally Posted by JosephC

The refs don't tell you when you do it. If your a HP feeding balls to your robot and you don't think you're doing anything wrong, why would you change what you're doing?

I could see from the webcasts when a human player received a penalty. If a human player can't see the ref waving the flag 3 feet from them they need to become more aware. That said, it is unacceptable if a ref calls a penalty without waving the flag, or signaling in some way.

[jeremylee]

Originally Posted by RyanShoff

We are going to have to replace our frame at Wisconsin. Practically everything is bend. It is shot. We are going to have to pull the swerve modules, shooter, and electronics board, and transfer everything to a new frame. But don't worry, we'll be back for more fun.

Ouch, that sounds like a lot of work. Im hoping we didnt miss any damage beyond our air cylinders.

[JeremyLansing]

Originally Posted by RyanShoff

We are going to have to replace our frame at Wisconsin. Practically everything is bend. It is shot. We are going to have to pull the swerve modules, shooter, and electronics board, and transfer everything to a new frame. But don't worry, we'll be back for more fun.

That's quite unfortunate, but not really all that surprising to me. Everyone in those finals was playing all out, its just a shame that it turned into such carnage on the field. I know that one of out pickup cylinders has a 30 degree bend in the rod, and our blue bumpers need to be rebuilt. Best of luck to you guys getting your frame fixed. It was a pleasure playing with you guys in elims and I look forward to hopefully getting to play together in Milwaukee.

[JagCode]

What fun being the Week 1 guinea pigs was. Our pairings were absolutely dreadful this year at WAAMV. We were often paired with unreliable teams, of which had confused drivers and didn't communicate. Our event's game breaking problem? An FMS that failed at least 5 times over the course of the last two days, causing mass robot DC's, and not to mention that fact that the field broke down several times. In the end, we leveled out at 6-6 for Qualifiers, and loosing our Semifinal Games.

Drive Issues

Our ability to shoot was somewhat hindered by our team having ONE driver manning all the controls, which led to multi-tasking being a nil topic. We were easily able to be shoved around, (even though we're on traction wheels) and the fact that we couldn't set up our launcher WHILE driving led to wasted time being stationary. By next event we're going to install a 360 Gamepad onto our drive station, so I can load the launcher while our driver focuses on ball acquisition, and getting our butts to the goal.

Autonomous

We were pretty reliable on our Autonomous, missing about 4 or 5 out of 12 balls we loaded. We ended up being 4th on autonomous score, which led other teams to be interested in us once it came to alliance selection. Our code's rundown is Mast - 1 Sec - Drive 30% (2.7 Sec) - 3 Sec - Launch(.25 Sec) x3

Elimination

During Quarters, we were paired with 1294 (Top Gun) and 4579 (RoboEagles). 1294's bot was the best loading bot at our district, with a backboard that rebounds into the holding area, and let us get some quick assist points out. We were facing an alliance containing 2990, a robot that near-severely damaged our spinner. 2990 was their destined shooting bot, and as such, 1294 and 4579 pressed on them hard as soon as their assists counted. 1294 kept bashing them to the point that they got under them, causing 2990 to, technically, ENTER 1294's robot. That gave us 50 Foul Points. At that point, 3220 bashed 1294, toppling 2990 and giving US even MORE Foul Points.

As this is MY first year, I'm quite pleased with our performance. Because this is our team's 5th year, the last of our founding members have left us for better lands. As such, we have 8 members with 1+ years of experience. The rest of us (15+ Members) are Rookies and Freshmen. It's like back to square one. May luck bless us at Event Two.

To all of you guys, good luck!

[S.P.A.M.er 17]

I wanted to comment how I feel the bar may impact ref'ing. As a ref for a week two event, I feel like there are two ways I could handle keeping score for an alliance. *Note: refs do not have the ability to undo ending a cycle*

A.) Have a itchy scoring finger: This ensures the second a ball is through the goal, and *scored,* the next cycle can begin. But what if that bar hits the ball back into play. Now a new cycle is started, and the first ball was never scored. The ref now is to blame.

B.) Patience is key: Not wanting to mess up, you will always have to make sure the ball is completely scored before ending a cycle. This means the ball crosses the plane, wait a second. The ball hits the bar, wait a second. Ball bounces around on the bar for a bit, wait two seconds. Finally, the ball falls off the bar, END CYCLE. While its true that no field fault occurred, it came at the expense of play time for an alliance.

Either way, this bar will be playing psychological games with refs, something I am not looking forward to. Hopefully it will be more clear when on the field, but from the videos, it was never 100% when the ball would be accepted or not.

[JosephC]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

I could see from the webcasts when a human player received a penalty. If a human player can't see the ref waving the flag 3 feet from them they need to become more aware. That said, it is unacceptable if a ref calls a penalty without waving the flag, or signaling in some way.

Webcast =/= on the field. I can tell you that from first hand human player experience. When you're worried about getting balls to your robot as fast as possible, you don't notice when a ref is waving his flag. If the safety zone was more noticeable, we'd have a lot less G40s. A small strip of yellow tape isn't really cutting it.

They should just remove the tape and extend the safety zone all the way to the edge of the field.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by S.P.A.M.er 17

Either way, this bar will be playing psychological games with refs, something I am not looking forward to. Hopefully it will be more clear when on the field, but from the videos, it was never 100% when the ball would be accepted or not.

Yes, this creates a lose-lose situation for the referees. The field should have a change to a slightly inclined ramp rather than a bar to ensure the ball leaves the field after passing through the plane of the goal.

[JosephC]

Originally Posted by S.P.A.M.er 17

Hopefully it will be more clear when on the field, but from the videos, it was never 100% when the ball would be accepted or not.

Unfortunately, it isn't. Even as Field Reset being right behind the goal, I was never 100% sure if a ball was going to bounce out or not.

[jeremylee]

Originally Posted by Woolly

G12 may need to be reworked to become like the pinning rule, to where you can posses the opponents ball for five seconds if the ball was acquired without the use of an active mechanism on the robot, but you must get X distance away from their ball before you can attempt to posses it again. That way if the opposing human player drops their ball in your robot you don't get the "death penalty" for it. EDIT: Also, the robot may not distance itself from the ball by launching it via a mechanism on the robot.

Interesting suggestion if I understand you correctly. Might also help in the case of a ball randomly falling in your robot after an opposing teams truss shot causing you to loose the match in finals due to a "50 point" technical to start you packing. I'm sure this would never happen...

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by JosephC

Webcast =/= on the field. I can tell you that from first hand human player experience. When you're worried about getting balls to your robot as fast as possible, you don't notice when a ref is waving his flag. If the safety zone was more noticeable, we'd have a lot less G40s. A small strip of yellow tape isn't really cutting it.

They should just remove the tape and extend the safety zone all the way to the edge of the field.

This.

I understand why G40 exists, but I don't think calling it every single time there is some portrusion is in the spirit of the rule. The initial team update added the rule because there were robots extending past the field perimeter when intaking the ball, so to keep human players safe, we need to have some saftey zone. When there is no robot extending past the field perimeter, and our human player wants to have some sort of accuracy when loading our robot, we shouldn't be penalized if we extend an inch into the zone. Especially if our player is in no immediate danger. Maybe we can define a "robot interaction zone" just like we did in 2005, but without pressure plates.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by JosephC

The refs don't tell you when you do it. If your a HP feeding balls to your robot and you don't think you're doing anything wrong, why would you change what you're doing?

Check out how the Human Player inbounded the ball each time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUi8ZEie7uw

[mechanical_robot]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

On the scoreboard, there is a number adjacent to the team number. What does it represent? Seems too high to be total assists.

Edit: It appears to be the current ranking.

The green dots represent the number of assists. You are talking about the rank number or the team number.

[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

This.

I understand why G40 exists, but I don't think calling it every single time there is some portrusion is in the spirit of the rule. The initial team update added the rule because there were robots extending past the field perimeter when intaking the ball, so to keep human players safe, we need to have some saftey zone. When there is no robot extending past the field perimeter, and our human player wants to have some sort of accuracy when loading our robot, we shouldn't be penalized if we extend an inch into the zone. Especially if our player is in no immediate danger. Maybe we can define a "robot interaction zone" just like we did in 2005, but without pressure plates.

Proposed wording for updated rules:

<Proposed G21> ROBOTS may not extend outside the HUMAN PLAYER BARRIER. (Note: the HP barrier is the 20" wide zone above the field perimeter pipes)

<Proposed G40> TEAMS may not extend any body part into the FIELD during the MATCH.

G41 (no HP/robot contact, no HP/Ball/Robot contact) remains as is.

This would make the HP barrier a "transition zone" where either robots or HP's could reach, but there could be no contact between them. You still couldn't lay a ball directly into a robot.

[Sparky3D]

Originally Posted by RyanShoff

We are going to have to replace our frame at Wisconsin. Practically everything is bend. It is shot. We are going to have to pull the swerve modules, shooter, and electronics board, and transfer everything to a new frame. But don't worry, we'll be back for more fun.

Man, that sucks. Let us know if you guys need any help.

[ToddF]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

If you want a visual representation of what kind of defense we're seeing in Aerial Assist, look here. That is a welded piece of 2x1, .125 in thick tubing, behind bumpers, totally broken. It's astounding.

From the wiki on 6061 aluminum:
"6061 is highly weldable, for example using tungsten inert gas welding (TIG) or metal inert gas welding (MIG). Typically, after welding, the properties near the weld are those of 6061-O, a loss of strength of around 80%. The material can be re-heat-treated to restore -T4 or -T6 temper for the whole piece. After welding, the material can naturally age and restore some of its strength as well. Nevertheless, the Alcoa Structural Handbook recommends the design strength of the material adjacent to the weld to be taken as 11,000 psi without proper heat treatment after the weld."

That compares to 35ksi yield strength of properly heat treated 6061-T6.

Teams that use welded aluminum construction need to realize that your welded joints are now incredibly weak. And that's if the welding has been done with perfect technique (certified welder with years of experience). High school grade workmanship will be way worse.