Human players first move

[pandamonium]

honestly i am slightly concerned with this concept of having a coach or analyst communicate, hold up a sign give a thumbs up what ever. Is it just me?

The match should be so fast paced. I would hate for a robot to be waiting with out a tube when some human player is waiting for a signal?!?!?

[Bob Steele]

We would LOVE for our opposing alliance to throw tubes out on the floor. Just less work for us..

Do your scouting..
and communicate before a match...

Really though, how many times do you think you will be up against an alliance that has NO minibots?

That same alliance will probably not be able to do much on the rack either...

The strategy of counting on 50 points at the end may backfire when you realize that the other team can also play defense on you trying to get to the pole....

i would think you would want a balanced attack..

Remember if a team comes in 3rd and 4th in the minibot race... you only have a 25 point advantage...one scored logo on the top rack with one uber tube is equal to 30 points...

so an ubertube and 3 tubes on the rack (at high level) will beat a team that captures both big prizes in the minibot and doesn't score anything else...if the tube scoring alliance puts 2 minibots up...

With no minibots it will take a full top row..(60 points) (with 2 ubertubes)


I would hazard a guess that a team that can put 3 tubes up and an uber tube will also have a good minibot....

Remember, playing defense can go both ways... if you are defending... you have to go through the teams that you are defending to get to your pole...if you are keeping them out of the scoring area... 18 feet wide is a big zone... don't count on controlling it for the whole match ....

Good luck!!

Communication before the match and teamwork during it will be a huge factor in this game.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by BJC

I don't see this as being a problem. A 150 lbs robot traveling more than 0 fps will win a pushing match with a tube any day of the week. If you ram into a tube trying to get to the feeder station the tube will move out of the way or at least flip up against the wall. I can't seeing this being a problem for any robot let alone be a stratigy.

Ahh, you never played Rack-n-Roll. Single tubes kept teams from being able to access their teammate's ramp or lift.

[45Auto]

Your going to fill your 'safe zones' with tubes that you can't pick up?

Yep, cause then you can't get them either!

How are you going to get near your feeder slot with 3 tubes between you and the feeder slot? Or approach your rack if there are tubes between you and the rack?

My experiences with Rack'n'Roll in 2007 were that robots had no problem with tubes on the floor. Once or twice over the whole season a tube on a ramp caused problems, but I don't see any ramps so far this year ....

[BJC]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

Ahh, you never played Rack-n-Roll. Single tubes kept teams from being able to access their teammate's ramp or lift.

Your right, I never played it. However, I have watched an extensive amount of videos from the year. Although tubes occationally stopped teams from getting on ramps I saw more tubes preventing the ramps from dropping all the way to the ground. Is it possible that those exceptions where a tube actually prevented a robot from getting up on a ramp was because the robot was riding up over the tube instead of contacting it on the bumpers due to the incline? Hmm... I think well do some testing with our robot and the tubes later this week to find if the tubes will be a problem.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by BJC

Your right, I never played it. However, I have watched an extensive amount of videos from the year. Although tubes occationally stopped teams from getting on ramps I saw more tubes preventing the ramps from dropping all the way to the ground. Is it possible that those exceptions where a tube actually prevented a robot from getting up on a ramp was because the robot was riding up over the tube instead of contacting it on the bumpers due to the incline? Hmm... I think well do some testing with our robot and the tubes later this week to find if the tubes will be a problem.

Einstein FM 1.3 disagrees. It didn't happen often, but when you can't push a tube out of the way with a world championship hanging in the balance, I think it is safe to say that it should be a concern. The channels to the human loaders are fairly narrow and I think dropped tubes may very well become a huge nuisance.

[Justin Montois]

A lot of what happens next is decided by the robot capabilities and the alliance strategy that is pre-determined before the match.

If your strategy is a shutdown defense and win with minibots (IE your alliance has 2 good minibots and the opposing alliance has none) then your human players don't do anything really. It's REALLY hard for an alliance to overcome 50 points on the rack and you don't want to give them any more opportunities at tubes then they will get from their own HP's.

If your strategy is a pure offense, hopefully you decided pre-match what robot was going to get what tube and where they are going to place it.

If the opposing alliance has 3 robots with no ground pickup ability then i'm telling my human players to be pretty liberal with throwing them on the field.

It's hard to directly answer your question because every match will be different. That's why match strategy to me is the most fun and important aspect of FRC.

[Eagleeyedan]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

Autonomous ends drivers take control of the robot and the human players...

no game prices on the field so this decision is very important.

What tube do they reach for and how do they put it on the field and why?
is this even something that will make a difference? I think it does...

IT doesn't matter which one they grab first. You just want to coordinate with your alliance partners to tell them which ones to give the robots. This can be done with the analyst.