Seeing both the picture of Wildstang’s robot, and then reading the quote by Jeff, reinforces a thought I had this past weekend about player’s station operators safety while seeing the game played on an actual event. (UTC Scrimmage.)
What happens when or if you drop a tetra over the players station wall while trying to make a huge stack on a goal near the players station wall??
Last year for instance, the height you gained was far away from the human player side of the field, and rarely caused a safety concern if someone fell while trying to hang, or climb the steps.
I don’t know… Maybe it will be a non-issue, and I am just being over analytic.
But… Maybe not.
Thoughts?
*By the way, I love the fact that 111 can stack that high (very impressive), I’m just concerned about safety. This is not a personal attack on 111, or any other very high stacking robots…
That could be an issue, I thought about the something watching the kickoff video then just put it in the back of my head. I can see it now, a team will have a high signal stack on a “home” goal and once it gets to high it tips back to the drivers.
I think FIRST could maybe put a lil roof over the drivers station, like the ball drop in last year, or maybe the drivers will be smart enough not to stack that high right above there heads.
That might be the one time that wearing you safety glasses on your forehead could be a good thing.
Elgin - you bring up a good point. It was pretty scary standing behind the player station with a tower of tetra looming over us ready to drop #18. It is definately a concern and something that we (and others) will have to be very careful about.
What I am more concerned with is capping on the far end of the field where depth perception may be off. The drivers will definately need to be careful when performing such maneuvers.
I guess the good thing is that the tetras (at least ours) seem to nest pretty well. It may not be a perfect nest, but it usually doesn’t fall unless provoked. I think this picture is a good example of that.
I am somewhat less concerned about tetras than about arms. Some of these arms can reach a couple of meters horizontally and are tipped with a long tetra-skewer. At our practice event I was loading the auto station when 492 came into the area a little aggressively. If they had been a little to the right, and I had been a little less attentive it could have been Really Bad. Did anything like this happen at other practice events?
i have to agree with Rick TYler here, we have 15’ height on our arm. While Wildstangs picture is impressive, its not practice example at all. I highly doubt in 2 min there will be a need to have more than ~5 tetras on the stations closest to the player. Especially not 18 on one. Here is an example:
Lets say we have 6 great robots that can cap a goal every 10 seconds.
Each round is 2 min - 15 sec auto mode = 105 seconds. (2*60)-15=105
Lets make it nice and easy to work with and drop those 5 seconds for some random contact or something
So that means we have 100 seconds, or 10 tetras per bot per round.
60 Tetras total in play on goals at the end of the game.
Divide that by the number of goals (9) gives us 6.67, so that means in this example each goal would have ~7 (give or take a tetra depending on vision tetra or other good auto mode strats)
Given the rules in section 3 (“The Arena”) There are only 80 tetras available to be in play. Evenly divided among all goals that would only be ~9 tetras per goal.
I honestly doubt most games will have more than 10 tetras on any single goal. I’m much more worried about our arm. While we are very stable even under full extension, who knows what might happen in play.
I’d forgotten that part. What happens when a 12-foot-tall robot tips over into the driver’s area, the autoloader personnel, the human player area, or the crowd?
I’m not standing next to the field if the tall boys are extended…
(P.S. My Delphi handle is “TYler” because my shift key stuck on the “Y” and there is no obvious way to change it. Normally, capitalizing the “Y” is strictly optional. )
This definitly seems like a concern, even just from watching some videos. I imagine it will be covered in the standard procedure speeches given before each practice round day.
One concern to keep in mind is that while the match is going, your adrenaline is high, a lot is going on, and you may be watching your robot, not what is coming at your head. Things happen, center of balances get off, and it seems like the issue will be adressed if it’s brought to someone’s attention.
Maybe send a pm to someone Elgin, regarding the issue, and include a link to the thread?
I think this is more than a When rather than an IF this is going to happen. This may be the reason they are going to inforce the rules about contact about bots a bit harder this year.
