Posted by Daniel.
Coach on team BORG (Berkeley Operational Robotics Group) from Berkeley High School sponsored by (working on the sponsor, too).
Posted on 1/14/2000 1:41 PM MST
Okay everybody. Here’s an issue I have with the way the competition is run. Below is a Q&A with eric regarding the position on the playing feild of individual robots within an alliance.
Now first off, I think it’s almost worth having one less match to remedy this problem. It seems that about 50% of the time you’ll be on the wrong side of the playing feild for what you want to do. Now 50% of THOSE times the opponent will be in the same situation but even then, that’s too much to leave to chance.
My proposed solution would be to simply have some reversal button in the human player stations that switches the inputs to the digital team number readouts. This would take almost no time. Now I’ll push this proposal, but I wouldn’t want to do anything rash so I thought I’d ask you folks first. What do you think?
-DL
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Question:
Alliance positions
I’d like to propose a situation for you to consider:
(1) Red alliance has one robot designed to grab the bar at the beginning.
(2) Blue alliance has one robot designed to grab the bar at the beginning.
(3) Red’s bar-grabber and blue’s bar-grabber are both VERY fast.
(4) Red’s bar-grabber is about the same speed as blue’s bar-grabber.
(5) Red’s bar-grabber starts in the outside position.
Blue’s bar-grabber starts in the inside position.
(6) Blue gets to the bar first, as it had to travel a shorter distance.
This gives blue a decided advantage. This negates the usefulness of an entire robot on the red alliance. This didn’t give red and blue a level playing field. I think in many cases one robot will want to use the ramp or the bar and the other will want to dive under that bar for the balls on the other side. I feel it is very necessary for teams to be able to pick which side each robot starts on to complements their strategy. This seems vital to me. Will this be allowed?
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Answer:
Hi Dan. You analysis of the robot starting positions versus capabilities is probably correct. However, the team positions will be determined by FIRST. The primary reason for this is that we need to maintain a fast throughput of matches during the event in order to allow teams to play a reasonable number of matches. Allowing teams to choose position on the field will slow things down because it requires several extra steps:
- Teams must pick sides
- Teams must convey choice to field staff
- Field staff must convey choice to scoring system operator
- Scoring system operator must input choice into scoring system, verify that input is correct, and send team numbers to electronic team number displays on the playing field.
That whole process might take as little as 30 seconds. However, that 30 second/match delay could easily add up to 1 less match/team at each event.
When you compete in the qualifying matches, you are randomly (by the computer) paired with your partner, assigned to a spot on the field, and compete in a series of matches. The intent, besides having fun, is to have each team in enough matches that we have a reasonable idea of the teams’ relative level of competitiveness in order to rank them for the elimination matches. There are many factors which can affect the outcome of a match including the quality of all 4 robots, skill of the human players, planning, strategy, field position, and luck. Hopefully it will all come out in the wash after you play several matches, and we drop the lowest scoring match for all teams, so one bad match won’t kill you.
Having said that, I agree with your analysis and we might decide to allow teams to select their starting positions in the Elimination Rounds, when things get extra competitive.
-Eric