In many games there has been a simple goal that you could earn points from by pushing game pieces around on the floor. Many teams do this when a mechanism breaks, when there’s nothing to do for defense, etc.
Last year you could push a cube into the bottom of the nodes. 2014 had the low corner goals, 2018 had the exchange, etc.
None of the scoring elements are able to be done this way. The speaker if its little ramp came all the way to the floor, would seem to lend itself to a nice little dumping area if the Knob was a bit bigger and would’ve been made into a hole. Teams could try and herd a piece up the ramp faces into the hole to add extra difficulty but would still be possible as a single point for teams who couldn’t do anything else.
Missed opportunity but how does everyone else feel about it?
We noticed this change from last year as well, but it might be offset by the relatively open rules for defense this year, which we think will encourage a lot more defense bots. Given the choke points on the field, defense is going to be much easier, especially if the robot you’re defending isn’t short enough to fit under the chains.
I think the vertical wall at the base of the subwoofer would preclude pushing a game piece up into a low goal without a (working) mechanism. And I think that vertical wall is needed to ensure notes fall off the subwoofer.
Last year’s game was exceptional with its low floor. But we didn’t have a competitive kitbot concept at kickoff, either. (Say that 10 times fast!) It seems like there is less “excuse” for teams to show up at comps without a functional scoring mechanism.
And if your bot breaks completely, you can still help your alliance by shuttling game pieces across the field.
The fact that FIRST has provided a kitbot that is capable of scoring on the speaker (high goal) at kickoff, and to all teams no less. I think this raises the floor for all teams, making the need for a goal that a robot can push game pieces into for scoring a little obsolete.
IMO, this also makes for a more engaging and fun game to watch from the spectators perspective.
I think this has been completely addressed by the simple and effective kitbot. If you can build the kitbot, you can build the simple add-on that lets you play this game highly effectively.
Im basically just going to echo some other people in this thread, but I think its due to the speaker-capable kitbot and increased value of defence. The kitbot will allow many if most newer teams to be able to shoot, meaning there is less of a need to add a “Score by Pushing” goal for them. The increased value of defence (slowing access to the amp, slowing cycles, and the fact that due to the short length of the amp stopping a bot for just a few seconds could make their note worth 2.5 times less valuable) means that even if a bots shooter breaks it can actively contribute to the game through defence.
Makes the Kitbot even more desirable for rookie teams. It has the basic functionality to score in the speaker, so it’s not a chassis bot. Glad there is no easy way of scoring. By this I am implying the “scoring by pushing”.
At kickoff I pointed out that while the kitbot looks “simple”, many low resource (funds/mentorship/etc.) teams would still struggle to develop and build it in 6 weeks if the plans weren’t provided on day 1.
Then there’s programming it. FIRST provided sample code for all languages!
Teams can still make a 1-note bulldozer to bring notes to their side of the field. So push assist instead of push score.
Games where teams could score in teleop with no mechanism:
05, 06, 08, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 23.
So 07, 09, 11, 12, 13, 17, 19, 20/21, and 22 all also did not have a way for a chassis to meaningfully score points directly in teleop. So in the 3v3 era we were even before this year.
Personally I don’t know how I would feel about it in this game because of how the Amp and Speaker interact. Since the Amp is worth 1 point, making a lower goal like on the Subwoofer would mean it would either be worth the same or less than the Amp and since the Amp boost the speaker I think 99% of the time teams would be told to just feed game pieces as opposed to scoring them so nothing would change.
And there’s the role for a push bot or one with a very simple bucket mechanism. You might not be able to score directly, but you can help the alliance by working as a feed-bot and moving game pieces from the source to the area of the speaker where teams with more complex mechanisms (and floor intakes) can accept and shoot them more quickly than if they had to cycle back to the source themselves. And that’s above and beyond the defensive role, which will likely be more active this year.
Notes are only 2 inches thick and round. I suspect that the net result of attempted pushing will be that the notes are run over and end up stuck under robots unless bumpers are especially low. But, there’s no other ground obstruction (no cable chase as in previous years), so very low bumpers might be possible.