As my team and I were discussing auto strategies yesterday we noticed that the difference in auto/teleop point values for coral scoring is very low (1 point). Obviously, to get the auto ranking point, you need to score your preloaded coral. However, it may be beneficial, we thought, to just prioritize removing algae from one’s reef in auto so as to maximize score in teleop, instead of focusing strictly on scoring coral.
What are yall’s thoughts on this? I think that maybe designing a robot that removes algae quickly enough to clear the reef entirely in auto could be strategically beneficial in the late game. The robot wouldn’t have to process any of it, just remove it from the pegs to make future scoring easier.
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The extra points in auto for L3 & L4 is 2 points. Since the human players can insert a coral into the coral station in auto (there’s an exception in one of the game rules that allows this), we definitely intend to pick multiple coral up from the coral station and place on L3 or L4.
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Maybe then a robot that can knock down algae as it extends to score coral in the top levels would be best.
Be careful with L3. Without removing algae from the reef no coral scored on L3 will count and in removing algae you may de-score your coral.
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Yeah, I believe that worrying about removing algae from the reef is not worth the time so I prefer scoring either L4 coral for more points, or L1 coral for the ability to score more quickly.
Intaking coral in auto is interesting because you either have a floor intake that indexes the coral or you retrieve from the coral station. Which requires the HP attention and timing.
I’m not really sure yet, my team has not decided on the direction of out auto strategy.
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Every L3 peg touches algae, does it not?
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Reis on Cranberry Alarm mentioned this but it is because of Rule 6.5.3
“ A CORAL is scored on L2-L4 BRANCH if the end of the BRANCH is inside the volume of the CORAL and the
CORAL is not in contact with a ROBOT or an ALGAE.”
Because of the way the ALGAE are placed in the REEF all of the L3 BRANCHES are touching ALGAE and CORAL placed on them are not counted as scored
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I am not denying that if your coral is touching algae that it won’t be counted as scored
I am not denying that every L3 branch is touching an algae
I am denying that “without removing algae from the reef no coral scored on L3 will count”
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If every L3 scoring peg is touching algae, and coral scored on such pegs won’t be counted as such, then it follows that a robot would have to remove some algae to get at this level, right?
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Like HenryLeC had mentioned I also initially learned this from Reis: https://youtu.be/w53hlXbkt_Y?si=4rXIw228WL5YMsh5
Because any algae on the L2 pairs also contacts coral scored on L3 and algae is placed on each pair on changing between L2 and L3, all scoring positions for L3 cannot be made without removing coral.
I will say, by the strict definition of “scored coral is any coral with Reef inside the volume”, there does exist several different variations of scoring L3 and L2 in auto if it is done so correctly through balancing.
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It may be possible to get a coral just on the end of an L3 peg where it is not touching the algae. This doesn’t seem like a wise strategy to me, but it looks like it could happen.
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It doesn’t follow.
The Algae needs to be touching the Coral for the Coral to not count; whether the Algae is touching a branch is irrelevant.
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I will say this. It would be important to have a robot that scored coral ONLY if you know that one of the other 2 teams has a robot that removes algae. But the issue with that is, which algae do they remove and at what point in the autonomous. So it’s all a gamble. This years game is going to be really specific for the strategy team.
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On the topic of intaking coral in auto vs. just taking down algae, there is no real incentive to remove algae in auto vs. in teleop, because there is no point difference, and the algae that is removed during auto would be able to roll around the field, which could interfere with your alliance partners’ autos. There is a point bonus to scoring coral in auto vs in teleop, and even with the algae on the reef, there are still plenty of places to score. I would say that intaking coral in auto from the coral station is worth it, and you would want to remove algae at the beginning of teleop, so you can get it out of the way, and have the drivers be able to react to it rolling around on the floor.
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The problem with removing algae in AUTO is that the algae can now interfere with robots while trying to operate in auto. This can be a huge problem for teams who intend on having advanced and quick autos.
Our team found it best to ignore algae in auto and focus on L4 scores.
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Let’s assume that the “obvious” auto is shuttling between a coral intake station and the nearest reef side. Further let’s assume there will be alliances where all 3 robots x can do this. Since, only 2 of the 3 can, what of bot 3? Given that the 3 floor coral may be hard to reach w/o interfering with the shuttling bots, is there any useful auto other than “drive forward and score your preload right in front of you”? So, it seems to me that floor coral intake is non-useful (at least until coral scoring gets good enough that those 3 are some of the last points available — Einstein? Earlier?)
So you’re gonna precariously balance your coral on the edge of the peg? What happens when a robot smacks the side of the reef and your coral slides down and is invalidated? Balancing the coral seems like a very risky strategy.