D-Bug 3316’s shooting chart for the Stronghold challenge. A useful utility to decide which shot is best from each location on the field.
Additional charts here: paper: D-Bug 3316 Stronghold Shooting Chart - CD-Media: Papers - Chief Delphi
Ooh neat. Is there a way to also account for balls bouncing off the edges of the goals and still going in? I feel like that might change the function slightly. Regardless, really neat post and good visualization.
Thanks!
I’ll release the Excel spreadsheet tomorrow so you can play with all the params.
I’m honestly very impressed with this visualization. It encodes a lot of data into a visualization that is both clear but also incredibly aesthetically pleasing. I’m looking forward to the release of the excel file just to see how the visuals were generated.
(I have nothing to add, just wanted to say freaking cool visual)
Seconded. Can’t wait to see the Excel formulas and algorithms that made this possible, because having this for future games would be awesome.
A great visualization you devised there. Now, if you also extend out the 6 parallel lines (seams), on the Tower Batter, you will also see that all of the largest bubbles (or best shooting positions, largest goal apertures), will appear within those 3 zones.
Poor man’s indicator: If using a camera mounted on the shooter itself (below or above and mounted on the centerline of the shooter mechanism (it would need to rotate with, if the shooter rotates), and the camera shows both the Batter and the Target Upper Goal (and those seam lines appear parallel with each other, and vertical, and your robot is lined up centered on them) , then you are within that Largest Target Aperture Zone or the shooting the sweet spot.
Simple Diagram: (The Tower Batter Seam Lines would appear vertical and parallel on you laptop screen and aligned with the tower upper target sides).
____ ________ Robot, robot shooter and camera { }
^Tower ^Tower Batter Seams Below Upper Goal Targets.
Batter Upper Goal Targets.
No matter which of the 3 upper targets, the view on any of the 3 would need to be the same to center up in the sweet spot for shooting.
To see the view I am talking about above…Go here.
Download all the Cardboard field views. (Pictures)
Now load the Blue side pic on your screen in pic viewer, and look at the Tower(s) and their Batter seam angles. Zoom in and out until you can see both Tower upper Target and the associated lower Batter seams. See the angles I am talking about? If they Batter Seams), are straight and vertical, and both parallel the view or angle is maximum aperture. If they are not, then adjustment of shooting angle is a better thing to do to achieve more of a shooting aperture. Save those pics.
In the Blue end view pic., (zoom & scroll side to side to view each tower). The far Tower is straight on and at max. aperture just looking at the Batter seams below the target, the near Tower is slightly not max. aperture to the left. Easily noticed quickly, move robot slightly right to shoot max. aperture.
All 3 target areas will appear the same if you align on the Batter seams below the targets.
As requested, OP delivers. Uploaded to the improved excel:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3218
This version also calculates at which height may your shooter be mounted such that it will be impossible to block your shot, even by a max height opponent.
example, the closed you shoot, the more steep the balls trajectory will be, and so harder to block. This is also effected by the distance the shooter is mounted from the robot’s leading edge.
Note the parameters sheet for some parameters to play with, and calculations sheet for accurate numbers. Be sure to double check all the maths before relying on this for your robot design! I don’t give any guarantees for exactness 
Beautiful chart. Well done.
Do you calculate the angle to the goal, and then multiply the aperture by the cos of the angle? Or do you calculate the included angle from the bot’s point of view? If it were the latter, I would have expected the circles to get smaller from far away
Here’s what I’m talking about. The table below looks at a slice of space perpendicular to a high goal. It calculates the included angle of the “gap” between ball and goal, in horizontal and vertical (and the minimum of each below). As you can see, the goal appears larger as you get closer and higher (something your chart doesn’t do afaik - I can’t check your math as I don’t have excel on this machine). There is a sweet spot 4’ up and 3’ back from the goal where the gap appears as big as 8 degrees (if I’ve done my math right)