So, what did we all learn from the scrimmages and play dates today?

[Leav]

Originally Posted by PrincessJae

4. Surprised how many mentors other teams have and how sometimes... it seems like they are doing all of the work and hardly even let the kids drive.

you hit the right spot. that is a major point in discussions related to how a FIRST team should be run.
I agree though that the kids should be doing 100% of the work, but now that I'm a mentor I can see how hard it is to accomplish that (especially when time is of the essence).

I hope you have a great season!

good luck!

-Leav

[Doug Leppard]

[quote=PrincessJae;700717]
2. Surprised we were the only ones testing autonomous mode.
QUOTE]

How did your auto mdoe work?

[PrincessJae]

Originally Posted by Doug Leppard

How did your auto mdoe work?

It was okay. We only have a small range and basically our robot goes straight and punches the ball off. only it doesn't really drive very striaght... and if i turn it too much it goes out of range (our robot turns 360) and were screwed for that 15 seconds haha. i can do it though =]

Originally Posted by Libby K

The mentors were driving?
This is super-duper illegal.

Yesterday was practice, today's the real scrimmage- i doubt they'll drive then =]

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by PrincessJae

4. Surprised how many mentors other teams have and how sometimes... it seems like they are doing all of the work and hardly even let the kids drive.

The mentors were driving?
This is super-duper illegal.

Originally Posted by <G51>

DRIVERS Operating ROBOTS- During a MATCH, the OPERATOR CONSOLE shall be operated solely by the DRIVERS. SIGNALING DEVICES shall be operated solely by ROBOCOACHES. Any operation of the OPERATOR CONSOLE or SIGNALING DEVICE by other than the designated TEAM members will result in the ROBOT being disabled and the ofending TEAM being disqualified from the MATCH.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

The two most important things I saw were robots tipping over and robots crossing lines in the wrong direction and incurring penalties.

It seemed almost every other match robots were falling over. When they did fall over, they blocked a large portion of the track. Referees were also calling impeding penalties on tipped robots the were NOT disabled by the drivers. Basically if you hit you e-stop you don't incur any penalties, other wise be prepared to rack up those 10 pointers.

There were also penalties flying for robots illegally crossing lines. If your robot barely crossed the line, they called it. My suggestion is to keep moving around the field in the proper direction.

[smurfgirl]

I was at Suffield Shakedown yesterday.

Surprises:
- I don't know if it was just this particular scrimmage, but I was surprised not to see a lot of catapult-type robots. I know they can be unsafe, but I heard so much talk about them on CD that I was expecting a lot of them.
- I was also surprised to see how many robots just did laps around the field. Our team had talked about it, but we decided against it.
- The number of robots which had arms that didn't work was also pretty surprising. I know we've still got more than 2 days until ship- a lot of time in the world of FIRST- but it still seemed like a lot of semi-functional bots.

One of the most useful lessons of the day was how easily robots break in this game. I saw so many parts fly off as robots drove into the divider wall, break off as they got entangled with other robots or the overpass, or just detach themselves mid-match.

The game play itself wasn't too surprising to me. I had talked a lot about strategy with my team members, and we guessed most of what we saw yesterday.

My opinion on the game is still the same as before, as well. It's a lot of fun, but still not my favorite FIRST game.