Hello all! I will be a pilot next week and am wondering if anyone had any tips for being an effective pilot. Anything you didn’t expect? I am interested in any tips/help.
There’s this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8XAxhC9OtQ
Shows you what piloting looks like from the pilot’s perspective and some of the situations you may run into during a match. I would also suggest that you make sure you are familiar with all of the parts of the airship and all of the rules, specifically penalties, regarding pilots.
We had a new pilot freshman. He did a great job. One thing is to be smooth with the gear pull up motion he early would flip gear off peg until he learned the motion. Also seems trivial but don’t forget to lower the ropes at 30 seconds. It gets a bit crazy up there with gears and our pilot (and the other) both forgot to lower the third rope. That cost us that match. Another time our frayed rope end got caught on the davit (cost us a climb) , so practice that dropping motion ahead of time with each new rope. Check length too pre-game hard to acquire if too long or too short. Be aware that gear flips sometimes end up in a robot inside negating that bot (and fuel delivery ) , saw that in eliminations a great gear bot now forced to solely play defense…they lost. Or a gear falls in such a way to make that peg very difficult to reach the peg again So get smooth non jerky lifting motion in practice…sometimes you do have to jiggle it if slightly is on the end of the spring to get it on more solid then lift rest of the way.
Then in eliminations same thing happened to us with a different pilot we did not get our rope until 9 seconds left… missed that climb. Oh well it happens. Still would have lost by 10 so did not affect our outcome in that game. My suggestion was that all students are use to yelling “robot” so I told him at 30 seconds do the same for the “ropes” to yell it out loud. That way both pilots get an audio clue. Our team was trying to yell but the pilot cannot hear you.
Also don’t pull the lift out of its sleeve completely, I saw a pilot struggle to put it back in and cost their alliance a peg for half a match …ouch. Remember to put the peg down too a bot cannot deliver a gear without a peg. If you are trying to do a gear auto grab the gear leave the mechanism up go place the gear then put it back down…this shave a few seconds off the gear placement motion . Also watch for the rotor to spin if it does not slightly rotate the gear to trigger the laser in the slot.
Don’t be one of those many alliances in week 1 especially that forgot the reserve gear and spun no rotors. I did not see that this week in our matches. I saw another team early rack up lots of fouls for pilots seeming confused and moving gears around…they got a talking too about replacing those installed gears.
Its the same for gear delivery students they need to pay attention because sometimes the gear may fail to go in to bots and be ready right away to deliver a second one…I saw many wasted seconds in several games because a student was not aware and the realized it a time later. Also dropped gears by loading station are an issue and make it difficult to acquire gears there so wait for the bot too align, sometimes vision is a problem from diagonal to its driving station so be patient and wait for that robot to align might take an extra second or so… Again gears do fall into bots happened to us early until we added a top to it that eliminated dumper load, and still in elims a gear made it in …argh… we added more tape. Think about the top of your robot perhaps put a cover on it… gears inside bots was fairly common event even happened in elims. Even behind the glass have to think fast, we ultimately got eliminated because a robot slammed into the back wall and unplugged our joystick, comms was fine our driver did not realise that happened until later and saw the layer one (hardware) issue after the game. We lost that game we were well ahead in due to half game without our bot. Again c’est la vie.
Like many things in life human errors ar part of life. Have to do your best to mitigate them in new situations. Its fun so enjoy it , just a game.
Don’t put your hand outside the port and below the deck level. That was the most common yellow card called.
Don’t forget to use the free gear.
Don’t forget to turn the crank to get the rotor started. Yes, this happened - the last gear was placed just as the 30 second bell sounded, they dropped the ropes, and forgot to come back to turn the crank.
Don’t forget to drop all 3 ropes. I saw some instances where the pilots dropped their own teams’ ropes, but forgot the 3rd team’s rope.
Great post. This thread can be closed, no, wait. 
The Human Player role this year is more involved than ever.
(Not going to start describing those behind the opposing alliance player stations as boiler scoring becomes more important.)
Pilots should also keep eye contact with their alliance drive teams.
I have seen many matches where the Drive teams were trying to get the attention of pilots, banging on the glass, to no avail.
Good advice. Having watched Week One matches in person (we are not competing until week six) I am going to advise our Airship crew to always drop our Alliance Partner’s rope first. We have a six second climb, others will need more time. And it might be the sort of thing remembered at selection time. I am sure that failing to drop a rope in a timely fashion would certainly be remembered! T. Wolter
From watching events at Week Zero, Week 1, and Week 2 on the webcasts my advice would be to remove yourself from your machine during matches. You have to remember that while your machine is on the field there are two others that are relying on you as well and one of them doesn’t have their pilot in the Airship.
Take some time to check pegs are clear and have been lowered properly so all pegs are available for your alliance to use.
At 30 seconds drop ALL of the ropes. There have been several matches I’ve had to painfully watch as the team who had to forfeit their pilot is stuck with no rope to climb because the pilots forgot about them because their focus was on their robot.
Check every rope. Teams using velcro especially have a downside of getting snagged on the velcro strap holding them up in the Airships so the pilots believe they have dropped the ropes but what they don’t see is that the rope is just dangling inches below them caught on the release strap. We tell our pilot to make sure the ropes are released and then do a lap around to make sure they have all been properly released.
Always check the pegs at the end of the match in case a last second gear has been delivered. An alliance in Orlando almost missed the fourth rotor because the pilots didn’t notice a stealth delivery by a robot.
Keep your hands inside the airship!!! Yellow card!
You can touch the rope when releasing but remember to drop it away from the touchpad. We had one drop on top of the touchpad and didn’t deploy. Lost 50 points right there. Don’t have your hands below the top rail while doing so.
A slow steady lifting of the peg rope will get you more gears, very few drops.
Watch the clock for that important 30 second mark. It is extremely loud on the field and pilots don’t hear the buzzer.
We played at Arkansas Rock City Regional and the above things made or broke a team.
All of the comments above mine are valid, GOOD LUCK
Know how each robot delivers gears. It can be worth it to really take your time on those lifts, lest you be overzealous and drop the gear right off the end.
Don’t forget all three ropes, but on the opposite side don’t rush through them so fast you can’t tell if one didn’t drop all the way.
I am the pilot on my team, and some things that I found helpful is to work out a strategy for the first few gears. Pretty much every robot that can will have a pre-loaded a gear and so figuring out a strategy to seamlessly get those first gears will help speed up the beginning. Work with the other pilot on autonomous because unless you are going for a two rotor auto, getting a second gear up at the possible expense of the auton gear is not worth it. I found that pulling up the auto gear and then passing it to the other pilot gave me more time to spend making sure that gear gets up. Also figure out the climb times of your alliance so you can give the maximum climb time needed. This helped us in playoffs because there was a team that needed pretty much the entire 30 seconds to climb, so we would always deploy their rope first. Ask your drive team and your team in the stands to shout rope at thirty, because it is really easy to get caught up with pulling a gear and then forget about the rope. I found that in pretty much every match I was in, each pilot picked a side and stuck with it, working together on the middle peg and preventing us from getting in each other’s way.
I learned this weekend that it was extremely fast and efficient to pull the gear up by the handle of the wire at an upwards angle and never pull the cord itself only the handle
Read the rules.
Read the rules.
Read the rules.
Careful that you don’t accidentally drop the prepopulated gears onto the field. For some reason that is a RED card. Many teams got caught by this at the Ontario Ryerson district event, unfortunately including my own.
:eek::eek::eek:
Dropping gears off the airship accidentally… not a red card. On purpose… red card. See H09.
But the fact that the prepopulated gears were removed from their axles is a red card under H15, and for good reason. (Good reason in this case being to prevent the instant 2-rotor auto…)
I think this is a good tip for any drive team member: don’t use your phone during a match.
Having been a pilot at a week 1 and 2, there was a lot I learned that I tried to pass on to other pilots I was with in matches. The pilots are critical this year, as they can single handily make or break a match. Everyone will make some mistakes, but below of some tips that I think will help you.
Before that match:
Ahead of the match, make sure you know not only how to get gears out of your robot, but also how to get them out of your alliance partners. There are 3 robots and 2 pilots, so someone will have to be lifting from a robot that they are not familiar with.
Next, let the drive teams know that if anything goes wrong in the airship, they should start yelling and banging on the plexiglass. I will explain further down why this is important.
Finally, if you are not the pilot, don’t leave the field after setting up your robot until the other two pilots have entered the airship. I have been in a match where one of the other two pilots disappeared during the match, leaving only one person in the airship.
During the match:
Take your time with pulling up gears when you first begin. You will develop your skills as you play more, but by dropping a gear, you not only lose that gear, but also make it harder to place gears in the future.
Also, don’t forget your reserve gear, it is a free gear that you can have to spin up rotors, but easily forget about in the heat of competition.
Next, ropes are extremely important. So many matches are won on climbs alone, so it is necessary that you can get your ropes down in time. As soon as you get the 30 second sounds, start dropping the ropes as soon as possible. Keep checking the ropes until you are for certain they are all down. Never tell your other pilot “I’ll get this rope if you get that one”. It is much too easy to forget one, and prevent a robot from climbing.
Once your are certain that all the robots are climbing, and your duties as a gear lifter are over, watch your own robot and trouble shoot the problems it might be having with climbing. Since you are right there, you can report back to your drive team what they could improve on.
Finally, as a pilot, large amounts of yelling, either from the drive team, or the audience, often means something went wrong in your airship. The most often cases are not dropping a rope or forgetting to spin up a rotor. Doing a quick check is never a bad idea.
After the match:
Recap with the other pilot what you each could have done better. The same is true for your own drive team.
If you have any other questions, I would be happy to answer them for you.
I wish the best of luck to you, and may your airship win many races.
This one applies to all drive team members so it bears repeating: Do not jump over the sides onto the field and do not enter the playing field until the light is green. It should be obvious but I see yellow cards being given out several times at both event I worked.
Read the rules!!!
You can have a very clean airship match if you read the rules. This yellow card business isnt as bad as everyone makes it out to be. There are some instances where you can reach out of the airship, such as to untangle peg pull lines or to release rope. We actually lost a couple matches due to the pilots not reaching out of the airship to release the rope, so read the rules to know what you are allowed and not allowed to do.
Communication is key. Know what you have planned with your other pilot and drive teams before getting on the airship.
I was a pilot for my team at Ann Arbor this past weekend, and noticed that some pilots that I was paired up with had different methods for gears. For example, who will get the autonomous gear, who will grab the reserve gear, etc. Another method is who would cover each peg along with who would rotate the gear set.
Going in, I was pretty nervous, but the first match I was in, I was paired with a member from 3641, The Flying Toasters. This dude was really cool and helped me get used to being up on the airship.
Overall, know the rules, know what you have planned, and stay calm!
I understand completely the reasoning for the rule, but I feel the red card should apply if you MOVE a prepopulated gear (eg. removed and then replaced on a different axle for strategic purposes), but not for the accidental knocking over and dropping of a prepopulated gear. That has its own built in penalty - you’re now a gear behind!
The refs at Ryerson were sympathetic but said that under the current rules, unfortunately, it also applies to dropping the prepopulated gears.