1st week regional and lots of field com problems as usual. However, the biggest problem we’ve seen on the real field is that the ball deflectors do a terrible job of keeping the balls out from under the bridge, and if it’s on the far side you can’t even see it’s there. Lots of teams unable to drop the bridge because there is a ball stuck under it.
i was noticing that too from what i could see online. it seems like the actual balancing isnt too bad if you have don’t try too last second. but if the balls are stuck there, then it doesn’t even matter. it will be interesting to see if there is a design update for week 2.
Im glad we add a second camera. I hope the figure out a way to fix this.
This was noted during many pre-ship date scrimmages. FIRST’s response, IIRC, was that this was intended and is an added challenge.
further proof as to why going over the bump is necessary 
but seriously, i would advise teams to cross the barrier and approach the bridges from the side closer to their alliance stations. You can see if there are balls under that side and your tipping the bridge down should dislodge any balls on the far side of the bridge. If there are balls under your side of the bridge then approach from the far side… if there are balls under both… then i’m not sure what you do 
rock the bridge?
I wonder what is going to happen when an alliance rolls balls under both sides of the opposing alliance bridge…so they cannot balance it.
I wonder if this will be a G25 violation? It should count as an interference with the act of balancing… if that is the case… it will be a difficult call for a referee to make if it is done … it is a huge penalty… technical foul AND the balance score…
It would be easy to call if it were done obviously but I can see balls being chased and getting stuck… who is to say it was intentional?
I wish the deflectors worked better…
I know it’s supposed to be part of the “challenge”, but I don’t think it’d be fair to see any teams loose a match only because their bridge was blocked by two of balls.
you make a collector that can fit under the bridge to pull them out
But we were told from the start that this wasn’t going to be a problem in this year’s game.
Its a G14 violation:
I think the question was if the balls were placed there inadvertently, but by the actions of an alliance.
I find it somewhat disturbing that this problem is being considered part of the challenge, when they went to specific lengths to assure us it wouldn’t.
From the video: “Its there to help balls roll out from under the bridge.”
I haven’t seen or heard anywhere where FIRST has specifically said that balls wouldn’t get stuck under the bridge. As seen in the video, the polycarb sheet lifts on one side when the other side of the bridge is pushed down. The weight of the bridge has to be removed from the top of the ball before it will roll out. From the field demo video that you linked, it looks to me like the bridge and polycarb sheet are behaving just as FIRST expected.
The field is working as designed, from my point of view that design was not clearly stated. Since the ball ramps aren’t part of the low cost field there was a slim chance a team would discover this challenge on their own with out some hints from FIRST. They could have worded it “that the ball ramps allow balls to be removed when the bridge is tipped to the other side” and I think a lot more teams would have understood the challenge as FIRST intended it.
I think the “it wasn’t on the low cost field!” argument was covered last week with 118’s hanger.
I dunno. I feel like the issue would come up in design when discussing bridge interactions. “Would I ever want to pick the bridge up? What are the reasons?” etc.
The problem here is that, even if that was clear, a scenario still exists where a ball can get stuck under either side, making it impossible to lift up and clear*.
Whether it’s intentional or not, the fact of the matter is that it was represented to teams that a system was in place to keep balls from getting stuck under the bridges, and balls are still getting stuck under the bridges. I have yet to see any robots which can get on the bridge without lowering it or without the assistance of another robot**.
When you have something as basic to the game as a Coopertition bridge, which counts as a win, it should be doable by almost every team…but if balls get jammed, nobody’s getting on that Coopertition bridge.
There are some things the GDC can rightfully say are “part of the challenge”, such as the chains sometimes deflecting goals in 2006 and 2010, or popped tubes in 2007 and 2011. This should not be one of those, as it is a situation which prevents teams from being able to complete a major part of the game, by no fault of their own, and is happening it a large number of the matches.
*I have not played with a real bridge with balls stuck under it. It’s possible that they will move enough that rocking the bridge will clear them, even though it can’t be pushed down far enough to climb on to
**With the exception of 118’s hanger mechanism, pending legality rulings. It’s worth noting that 179 can hang from the bridge without climbing on it, but someone needs to get on it first for them to be able to balance by hanging, thus they would require the assistance of another robot (and another robot requires theirs).
Yes it is a T foul and we will be on the look out for this.
I have seen a robot get on the bridge with balls trapt under it. Tonight at Kettering’s practice 33 did it a few times, but I do not believe they knew the balls were there due to the fact the were driving towards themselves.
From looking at a bunch of videos, it looks like lifting the bridge only a little bit will allow a trapped ball to roll free. So if your bridge manipulating device can both push up and pull down you should be able to wiggle trapped balls out if they are on both sides. Push the side you are on up to get that ball out. Then push it down and drive up, freeing the ball on the other side.
Many of the past eight years we have made a critical mistake of one kind or another, usually in terms of assuming some kind of nominal value wasn’t nominal. Thus, we paid a lot of attention to the bridge "help"ing keep the balls from jamming underneath… …which doesn’t mean they won’t.
With the 14" extension restriction, they do appear for the most part to make the balls accessible to robots with the appropriate mechanism to knock them out (and/or suck 'em in).
Instead of railing against the unfairness of it all, teams should be considering what they can do between now and their own events (or now and tomorrow’s first match) to be able to clear balls from underneath the bridge.
And on that note, from what I can tell watching Alamo and KC today, lifting the bridge doesn’t seem to work more than maybe 50% of the time (or less), so another method might be desirable.
Pat’s post is exactly how I interpreted it as well. The ball deflectors do keep the balls from jamming up near the pivot base of the bridge (where all the balls would go without them). The definition said it would help keep the balls from jamming…which it does. It never said anything about rolling them with grace out from under the bridge so your robot can sweep them up with ease.
With the right manipulator, the balls under the bridge are accessible to all teams. It might not have been as readable as “a mechanism to put balls into hoops”, but it’s clear many teams thought of this problem and built devices to compensate. In my mind, it’s all part of the game.