General Notes from GLR Field Team

[Btower]

Thanks to Everyone for an Awesome GLR.

Some notes:

Robot Reliabilty was far better this year than in years past but I would like to share a couple of observations from GLR.

1. Many robots lost loaded tetras in the human stations because the arms drifted below the fence once the weight of the tetra was loaded. Remember the robot has no power at this point. I believe there were also penalties assesed at times related to this issue.

2. Penalties were huge in determining the winners of the qualification matches. In the early rounds I'd say it was the deciding factor in about 50% of the matches. Foot faults in the human loading zone were the predominate cause early on, later it shifted to robots not on the zone triangle. Try feelers, brushes etc. to maximize robot contact area. Be very careful of interference while other robots are loading in the human zones. (30pt)

3. Lower that CG. Robots self tipping and/or being easily tipped due high CG's was certainly a factor. When not actively loading or defending get those arms down. Not only can you keep your wheels on the ground, but even an incidental contact with another robot robot when your arm is raised could result in a penalty or disabling. It also is a safety issue, we had a few near misses with robots tipping outside the field and nearly taking out referees and/or one of the kids reloading the self loaders.

4. Secure those batteries and radio receivers.

5. Simple Autonomous works, knocking down side goals goes a long way to "owning" your home row.

Thankfully, we had only a few field technical problems, but we had some very confusing ones with sound signals which will hopefully be resolved by next week.

Other than the car fire in the parking lot, we had a very safe competition, far fewer injuries than the last two years. In fact I don't think we had anything major. Last year we had some nasty cuts and falls.

This years competition requires a lot of venue space, GLR is a relatively large venue, Detroit and others are going to be cramped, please work with the field teams if they come to you about cart sizes.

Any feedback as to what could be improved will be appreciated.

Again, great job to everyone, and thanks to the teams who helped with field teardown.


Cheers,

Ben Tower - Field Manager 05 GLR

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Because my team is not competing until this coming weekend at BMR, I found myself a spectator at GLR. I felt incredibly different about it than when I was a member of a team there at other regionals.

It is a huge venue. I was very happy about how organized movement around the pits was, though to a newcomer the stands are confusing because of that one corner where the steps split.

Having been at GLR last year, and remembering a few things, I want to commend on the referee team for what they did with the resources they had. In an ideal world, there would be enough referees to cover every single point of the field and the existing ones wouldn't have to rush back and forth. However, it was handled well, though there were a few matches with frighteningly long discussion periods.

Good job on a great regional, Michigan, and thanks for having me

- Genia

[Kevin Sevcik]

Just got back from GLR yesterday and it was great. Our robot wasn't firing on all cylinders until the last match Friday, so we got overlooked during alliance selections, but we had a great time, and we're ready to storm Lone Star.

Overall, I think the competition was run extremely well. As mentioned, the field was large, so traffic was a bit of a problem between matches. Especially with the only exit being a standard doorway and some teams forgetting tethers to lower their arms. The only real problem I saw was around the auto loading zones. Tetra replacement was occasionally a bit slow because the scorer's table was right behind the tetra stands. And I swear I saw a ref standing right there in the way once or twice during a match. So I'd ask that all refs please try to stay out of the way when they can. I know they're really busy reffing and all, but it'd be nice to keep the auto loading replenishment as smooth as possible.

[Btower]

Kevin,
Thanks for coming up to the snow, sorry you had some robot performance issues.

The scoring table placement was a mistake, I should have put it back a couple more feet. Not only did it slow down some of the replenishment, but I'm also concerned a kid loading could get trapped if a robot came over the fence. At the time, I thought I might be moving robots behind the table. Lesson Learned.

Thanks for mentioning the extended arms blocking traffic, that certainly caused some severe traffic jams. However, I do want to thank the teams for getting robots off the field with the arms extended, that really helped us stay on schedule.

Eugenia,
Good Luck next week. Thanks for the comments. I agree the arena is confusing. Early on Wednesday we actually marked out the wrong end, because we got our directions confused.
This is probably one of the most difficult games I've seen to referee and score, however I agree with you, some of the conferences were awfully long.

Tanks again for the feedback,

Ben