End Game Bonus/Autonomous Discussion

FIRST General Forum
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I know that many people have complained to me about the end game bonus and I was complaining about it too. Right about until the point where I was thinking about what Dave said to me, which led to other tangential words of wisdom, which brought me to him saying something along the lines of in the 2007 game, they did not mean for the end game bonus to be the game, but rather a bonus.

In 2007 if you do not know, most games were determined by a bonus. The 15,30,45,or60 points you got for raising robots.

My idea is the games will be matched at around 20-25 by the end of the first few regionals. This comes from the 15 seconds it takes for someone to collect the ball, use the trident, and bring it back in play. The number also comes from an end game bonus.

If the bonus points (added up) ended up to be double what they are, you would get 16 points or so which would be pretty much double the expected score (if you score every one of your balls plus all of the ones your team returned to play - 12 given + 4/per minute based on the above calculation*2 min = 20)**. That would make it not a bonus, but a key game element.

The whole idea of a bonus, is a bonus. Something extra to help the game, not to make the game. And thinking along these lines you can see why the autonomous modes have no extra advantages. I do think that in autonomous the goals should count as 2 points but that is my opinion and I can clearly understand the purpose of the pieces being work only a single point.

This game “as high scoring” as you may think it is, is based on Soccer. Remember there is very little scoring in the actual game so don’t expect scores on the lines of years past, or even on the lines of Aim High. It is a completely new monster. Maybe a monster bred from games past, but a completely different monster nonetheless.

Any thoughts?

Pavan Davé

**the figure above about the 15seconds is a rough estimate, based on the students at the Dallas regional kick off. This does include an extra second or two for a student to mismanage the ball but in the end I think that 15 is a good figure, at least for the regional events for the average team. This is also considering I measured one ball and not 3 at a time assuming that only one ball was on the rail at any given time, so the time in reality will probably be less, however this is a safe overestimation on time so we know in a worst case scenario this is what it would be.

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Well for the end game, does anyone think that robots will have trouble climbing onto the platform?

3

If the robot is not designed to climb the platform, I don’t think it will be able to.

It might be easier then first thought, but its not a walk in the park by any means

4

Hanging from the tower and climbing onto the platform are two different animals. You asked about climbing onto the platform so that is what I’ll reply to.

If you approach it as it was done in the video, and we all know that the video is not the true measure for the game, I say it will never happen. (Please quote me on that when some team full of brilliant students actually do it) You see, in the video, a robot climbed up the bump, then drove along the 12" wide top and finally onto the platform. I just don’t see that ever happening.
Now, if you could have your robot pull it’s self up to above the platform and then swing onto the platform, that I think just might work.

5

Being able to collect on the 2 or 3 bonus points, is unimaginably important. Even if all three robots are just elevated, that turns a score of 10 to 16. Considering that by suspending a robot gives you only 1 additional point, I’m not so sure how critical that will be, but if one robot can make it so both their alliance partners can suspend from them, they just became the 1st seed, or 1st seed pick.

6

…never say never. :wink:

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yeah i think driving into the area instead of hanging yourself will be the hardest thing to accomplish but its not impossible and teams that do try need to be very careful in not overturning themselves

8

Anyone who thinks that an additional 12.5% play time, especially undefended play time, isn’t enough insentive to be active in autonomous seriously needs to rethink how they strategize.

Also, the bonus has to be large enough for it to be a profitable decision (in terms of “time spent per robot”/points) instead of continuing to score game pieces.

9

hmmmm interesting.

Am I the only one who thinks autonomous is going to be both really easy and important?

Think about it.

You can place your balls basically wherever you want.

You can place your robot almost wherever you want.

The goal doesn’t move.

= You can line up your robot and balls and knock them into the goal one at a time. No worries about robots getting in your way. Heck, you don’t even need sensors. I’m sure a dead-reckoning robot could easily be programmed to drive a short distance and fire a kicker.

When you consider how chaotic the rest of the game will be (It will be really hard to control the balls with robots knocking into each other), the autonomous becomes a bonus itself.

10

As stated by someone else on another thread (I can’t recall who or where, sorry):
Another incentive regarding autonomous is that if your robot nearest the opponent’s goals fails to clear the three balls out in 15 seconds, you’ve left your opponent three balls sitting in front of his goal with only one defender.

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Well, the end game could definitely be a big point changer except in the opposite way that most people are thinking. I’ve read over the rules several times and I still am seeing the following problem in the words as written. This is the question I am posing the second that Q&A comes online:

2010 <G46> and <R19>Clarification

Does G46 / R19 apply to robots that are climbing the tower or in their FINALE CONFIGURATION? According to this rule, any ball that rolls under the robot while it is on the tower and above the floor would violate this rule as written and cause a penalty.

R19 states that in normal operation the ball may not penetrate more than 3 inches inside the FRAME PERIMETER. It does not use the NORMAL CONFIGURATION terminology and as tower climbing could be considered normal operation for this game, penalties could be occurred for any ball that happens to roll under a tower climbing robot.

I think the frame perimeter penalty is not meant to apply to tower climbing robots as that seems against the spirit of the competition, but clarification as early as possible will dictate whether we try and climb the tower or not. If our robot is just hanging there for any stray ball to penalize us, we’ll stay on the ground.

Depending how that question comes out, we’ll be ready to roll some balls under the suspended and elevated robots and deduct the points they thought they were getting. :slight_smile:

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sircedric4 said :
I think the frame perimeter penalty is not meant to apply to tower climbing robots as that seems against the spirit of the competition, but clarification as early as possible will dictate whether we try and climb the tower or not. If our robot is just hanging there for any stray ball to penalize us, we’ll stay on the ground.
/q
I didn’t even consider this but as stated it is plausible. Hopefully a clarification will come out.

The item we are trying to come to grips with is, can we score 8 points in 20-30 seconds? especially if the goal is undefended? More importantly, can we score 9 points? beating any advantage hanging could possible give us?

We decided figuring out the ball shooter first, then the drive train before we try to determine the answer to the above. Its all speculation until we have a machine that can actually score.

Also for anyone who isn’t planning on building a hump, do it. This thing is not as easy as you think to cross.

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With 20 (or more) seconds left…the 3 blue robots all head to the tower to hang. Can the red robots continue to shoot any balls still on the field towards the undefended goals? Will human players still have to re-enter balls to the field with the trident based on the math formula for time?

14

yes to all of the above.

15

I agree to a degree here. I am glad that the target will be stationary unlike last year, and we will not need to sense where the target or the balls are because we can anticipate basically the same position! This will be great!

There is one factor that I am a bit worried about. If you are in the far field, then you will have two alliance robots in front of you. Plus a likely near field strategy will be to simply move up to bump the ball into the goal. If that robot remains there, then they will be an obstacle to all the team members behind it. That being said, like they mention in the video, it would be nice to move out of the way after you do your deal in autonomous. A cool addition would be to have variable timers on all alliance robots for autonomous, that way you can coordinate your plans, so no balls get blocked.

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