Team update 16

[Billfred]

Best. Team. Update. Ever.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Best. Team. Update. Ever.

Couldn't agree more. With my team's first competition this week I was losing sleep hoping balls would never get jammed at the mouth of the ball counter. Thankfully, now we can use the end of the trident!

I guess the 5 points is an ok rule, I guess...

[pacoliketaco]

well first off, thank you GDC for fixing these two problems with the game that i saw last weekend. i think that a lot of matches were shutouts, or even 0-0, because of the three inch rule, enforced even if a team was pushed onto a ball (or flipped onto one, as happened a few times). so that fix is great, as is the other, as our team would probably have finished much higher, as a great deal of our matches were shutouts, so a 7-2 record placed us 19th. kinda annoying to change the rule after week 1, as has been said, but at least now everyone else gets to play the game as it should have been. so good luck to everyone else for the rest of the season

[the man]

did any one notice this?

In the event that BALLS become dammed in the GOAL at the mouth of the BALL COUNTER,

I think dammed is ment to be jamed.

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by the man

did any one notice this?

In the event that BALLS become dammed in the GOAL at the mouth of the BALL COUNTER,

I think dammed is ment to be jamed.

technically, dammed is the correct word. Jammed would be just as good, but dammed implies that there is a flow that's being blocked, like a dam.


As to the argument of whether 5 points solves this crisis: I don't think it does, but it makes winning more appealing to those who need the Highest qualifying points possible. I can imagine a situations where 6v0 would still be employed, but only for alliances with robots desperate to get easy qualifying points. Could you imagine if robots block their own goals so opponent's can't score on them?

[johnr]

Team 5000 coach," I don't think so. My kids busted their butt for 6 weeks. Your not picking us anyway so we are here to have fun and play to win. Now you think your so smart come up with a strategy to win"
By the way, a team that could only push balls(at the time) won Kettering.

[thefro526]

TheFro approves of this update.

It may not be perfect, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than what we had to work with before. Also, we competed in week 1, and the seeding system wasn't very nice to us either, but that's in the past now. We just have to keep moving forward to bigger and better things.

Thanks GDC, at least we know that you're out there somewhere... Listening.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Thanks GDC, at least we know that you're out there somewhere... Listening.

They may listen but I'm also sure they evaluate and review. The 1st week competitions offered the opportunity for the game to be played out. We've spent several days picking things apart, evaluating, looking at the results. I wouldn't be surprised if the GDC doesn't do that as well.

Jane

[Ryan Dognaux]

Better late than never.

As a team that competed during week 1, the penalties were making the game way less fun than it should have been. This update should take care of all of that and hopefully we'll start to see a lot more ball passing and ball controlling strategies taking place.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Better late than never.

As a team that competed during week 1, the penalties were making the game way less fun than it should have been. This update should take care of all of that and hopefully we'll start to see a lot more ball passing and ball controlling strategies taking place.

I was surprised at the <G46> penalties, not because the penalties were called, but because teams did not design their bot to prevent it. How hard is it to design a bot that doesn't allow a 3" penetration? Did teams not do testing prior to ship? The rule existed from the beginning. I hate to put blame on teams, but that was an easy thing to fix.

Before I get flamed, I am not talking about getting forced over a ball on a hump, or something un-avoidable. But if the ball can get under your bot just driving around, you need to make a change. You should have tested for this possibility. The rules were clear.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by martin417

I was surprised at the <G46> penalties, not because the penalties were called, but because teams did not design their bot to prevent it. How hard is it to design a bot that doesn't allow a 3" penetration? Did teams not do testing prior to ship? The rule existed from the beginning. I hate to put blame on teams, but that was an easy thing to fix.

Before I get flamed, I am not talking about getting forced over a ball on a hump, or something un-avoidable. But if the ball can get under your bot just driving around, you need to make a change. You should have tested for this possibility. The rules were clear.

Martin - No doubt about it, the rules were clear as day.

I think what teams failed to expect was just how easy it is to get a ball under your frame. There are a lot of things usually going on to factor in - other robots, the field elements, the driver station lack-of-view. I can easily see how a team could not even see a ball that it ran over depending upon where they're at on the field.

Balls near the bumps were often an issue as teams would come over them and land on top of a ball. The inclines near the goals were bad spots too; as teams tried pushing balls in they would often drive over them.

The rules were clear, but I'm glad that they've changed them a bit. It should make for higher scores and an all around better competition with a reduced focus on avoiding penalties and an increased focus on scoring points.

[jspatz1]

It could be argued that for most robots, driving over the ball was not really an incursion violation anyway. If you think of the bottom of the robot in the same terms as the top of the robot, the ball could pass under the bottom without actually penetrating the frame volume by 3", just as it can roll across the top without doing so. The rule is not that the ball cannot come into a verticle projection of the frame perimeter, it is that it cannot incure a concave area of the robot by more than 3". This update is certainly welcome to clarify the intent of the rule. We may have had many penalties called in week 1 that should not have been.

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Martin - No doubt about it, the rules were clear as day.

I think what teams failed to expect was just how easy it is to get a ball under your frame. There are a lot of things usually going on to factor in - other robots, the field elements, the driver station lack-of-view. I can easily see how a team could not even see a ball that it ran over depending upon where they're at on the field.

Balls near the bumps were often an issue as teams would come over them and land on top of a ball. The inclines near the goals were bad spots too; as teams tried pushing balls in they would often drive over them.

The rules were clear, but I'm glad that they've changed them a bit. It should make for higher scores and an all around better competition with a reduced focus on avoiding penalties and an increased focus on scoring points.

Really? Teams that designed to be able to drive over the bumps never thought that they might also drive over a ball? Really? I thought most teams would have considered that early on during the design process. We sure did. That was one of the factors that steered us away from going over the bumps from the beginning. That and the higher likelihood of getting flipped over. We DESIGNED to minimize the likelihood of penalties from the beginning rather than leaving it as an after thought for the drivers to deal with on the field. We basically equated going over the bumps to a high likelihood of getting penalties and/or flipped over. We are only going through the tunnels instead for those reasons.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic with the new changes in Update 16. I think it will elevate the game play for all. I am especially happy to see the new rule that you don’t get any seeding points until you field a robot that has passed inspection. Being one of the inspectors in Bayou having to watch 2920 not pass inspection but be ranked in the top 8 all day Friday and Saturday was painful to watch. This is the first time that I can ever remember that FIRST has, as of Update 16, not just let you put your human player out there and you still get the points.

[Teammax]

Originally Posted by martin417

I was surprised at the <G46> penalties, not because the penalties were called, but because teams did not design their bot to prevent it. How hard is it to design a bot that doesn't allow a 3" penetration? Did teams not do testing prior to ship? The rule existed from the beginning. I hate to put blame on teams, but that was an easy thing to fix.

Before I get flamed, I am not talking about getting forced over a ball on a hump, or something un-avoidable. But if the ball can get under your bot just driving around, you need to make a change. You should have tested for this possibility. The rules were clear.

I think designing a robot to go over the bumps and one that will not allow balls to roll under it is very challenging. I am sure there are effective designs but just having a round object with a surface that grips makes it hard to stop. If the center of the ball can get under a robot then it is very easy to drive over that ball and trap it under neath. You cannot have a solid 'skirt' the rides low to the ground because it effects your ability to go over the bumps.

I am sure that teams have effectively designed there robot to avoid this (I hope we did!!) but I think it is more of a challenge then we thought it would be.

[Martinez]

Originally Posted by Teammax

I think designing a robot to go over the bumps and one that will not allow balls to roll under it is very challenging. I am sure there are effective designs but just having a round object with a surface that grips makes it hard to stop. If the center of the ball can get under a robot then it is very easy to drive over that ball and trap it under neath. You cannot have a solid 'skirt' the rides low to the ground because it effects your ability to go over the bumps.

I am sure that teams have effectively designed there robot to avoid this (I hope we did!!) but I think it is more of a challenge then we thought it would be.

Agreed. Along with posessing a ball well enough to drive that ball up the ramp into the goal I would see as the major design challanges of this year's game, even above that of hanging, once a cost analysis is undertaken. Balls are everywhere in this game, especially in places you don't expect (or can't see due to field objects) and its really easy for an opposing robot to shove it underneath your frame.