Capping Speed

[Justin_302]

This is a fast paced game and the team that can put tetras on the goals the quickest, will end up winning

[PMGRACER]

Let's see, 8-12 pound difficult object to grab, elavate 8-10 ft, 3 robots gunning for you, 130lb weight limit on robot, minimal control on end of arm with 8-12 lbs applying a lot of leverage on 130 lb 28 in x 38 in foot print? I see disaster! Oh the carnage! Broken arms, broken tetras, broken dreams....Oh the Humanity! That aside, you'll probably see somebody do the impossoble in autonomous mode and blow everybody's minds away! LOL

[cnield]

one of the better teams in our area said that they were able to do a cycle about every 20s. Our robot isn't ready yet, so we can't tell what our speed will be.

[JoshJ]

Stuff like capping always takes longer in the game than it does in practice. Think of last year, how fast could teams cap the goals? IMHO balls are a lot easier to handle than tetras.

Also think of how many tetras you plan to cap in then entire match. At <10 seconds, thats 12 tetras; two on every goal on your side of the field (Does that include human player running?). A more reasonable bet I think is 20 seconds per cycle, atleast, especially with all the bots running aound and human players doing never-ending shuttle runs. Of course, a twenty second cycle means 6 tetras (not counting auto). Times 6= 36 tetras. Divide by 9 and thats 4 on each goal. If I see a match with 36 tetras capped, I will stand and applaud all 6 teams. I hope that it happens.

[Andrew]

When you say "capping speed," do you mean the time it takes to load a tetra, travel to the goal, and deliver it? Or just the time it takes to deploy it when you have reached the goal?

I predict...that 15 scored tetras in 2:00 will be a marvelous accomplishment (unobstructed). Under match conditions, half that would be a very good thing.

This would be 8 seconds per tetra unobstructed and 16 seconds per tetra in match conditions.

And those would be good numbers.

I suspect that the average tetra deliverer will be more like 2-3 per match, or more like 60 seconds per tetra.

The reason for my pessimism? Traffic on the field and choke points at the loading stations.

Reloading the auto station will probably take 5-10 seconds. Human player loading will be more like 10-15 seconds from approach to the loading station until exit from the loading station.

[Parker]

Originally Posted by FIRST JerseyKid

What do you think the average capping time will be?

The best teams, during autonomous mode, will stack the vision tetra after they stack any other tetras. A team would want to successfully stack the vision tetra as close to 15 second as possible; that way, if an opponent has already stacked a tetra on that goal, you will have control of it. Keep in mind both teams will get the bonus tetras placed in their end zone goals if they stack a vision tetra on a middle goal during the autonomous period.

[oreocookeee]

i think that waiting to cap the vision tetra at the last second is a bad idea because the robot will be more likely to collide with an opponent robot trying to do the same thing. i would rather secure the bonus tetras and then only worry about owning goals during the controlled period. dont forget that if you place the second tetra, the robot would have to reach about 6 inches higher.

[Gene F]

I think the effectiveness of capping will be greatly impacted by the height of the goal. The center goal will be much harder to cap! I think the number of bots that can cap one of the short goals will be around 50% but capping the center goal will only be done efficiently by less than 10%. Times Will vary as well based on which goal. I think the average for the short goals will be around 15 seconds but the center goal will take on average about 20 seconds. The additional time is because the added complexity required to reach that height and the extra care that will be required when your center of gravity goes higher.

[slickguy2007]

Personally, I think that after a while most teams will be lucky if they can get close enough to cap. This game will turn into a battle for who can push the hardest in finals. I think that once everyone begins to break due to all the high torque robots, things will turn ugly. I hope i am wrong, but looking at the fact that their aren't really any alternatives to capping except placing under the goals and being behind the line before the end of the match. Most teams will realize that it is difficult to win by just using the bottoms of the goals to score. The fact that their are gonna be 4 cims in most of those robots isn't too reassuring either. I just hope that our arm survives for nationals.....