The wheels will have more grip on the carpet, but as soon as you leave the carpet and re-enter the regolith the wheels will lose all traction, due to the speed they are spinning at and slip back into the carpet. So most likely it will work to pin with two bots, and in the worst case scenario the pinned bot will jerk around.
I agree that a lot of points will be scored by the chase, bump, and dump strategy. The pursuit algorithm with matched robots on a limited field will always result in the chaser overtaking. The minimal turn radius at 10 ft. / sec with 0.06g acceleration is 8 feet. The real question is who wins in the contest of bump and dumpers versus pinners and PS shooters.
The good old basketball “corner trap” might play out well.
The idea of pinning a teams robot is somewhat effective. I want to see how plausible this idea was with the simulation that was shown at kickoff but thats yet to be released. I believed this strategy will be tested and finnally decided on in the week 1 regionals. We will be at Trenton so we we be one of the the first teams possibly employing this technique.
First of all, I have to point out that the likelihood of your robot being entirely on carpet is rather slim. I think that was something that FIRST did to a) give the ability for some teams to just drive around the edges (but that would make your trailer an open target) and b) to help if you run into a wall to provide that tiny bit more traction to propel you back onto the regolith.
I completely agree. Movement will be key. If you’re not moving, your trailer is much more vulnerable. Imagine if all the robots are on one half of the field. A PS that would throw from the side where no robots are would have a small chance of scoring if you move, because by the time the ball gets there, your robot could be gone.
I would not say that this is an athletic game with just moving robots. It’s all a matter of opinion, but I would like to point out that FIRST is about robots. They wouldn’t create a game where the robots weren’t important. I think the idea is to see that although the PS is important, robot scoring can be just as, if not, more effective. A PS has limited opportunities to score, and has the time factor of having to bend down, pick up a ball and throw it. Throwing more than one at once would be highly inaccurate (provided the trailer isn’t next to the fueling station) and therefore they must throw one at a time. This goes along with:
Mass scoring robots will greatly sway the game. In my opinion, this is probably the most efficient way to score. When you have a trailer in front of you, and you have any number of balls in possession, you want to get rid of them as quickly as possible, before you lose that opportunity to score.
Teamwork is important in every game, but so is self-reliance. If your alliance partners get in a bind, you don’t want to be helpless. You have to know that, should that happen, you can still be an effective player for your alliance and do something to help bring up the score. It’s always to good to plan for the worst case scenario.
i think the human interaction wont be as great as you mite assume just because a. robots are moving b. im going to assume most of the balls will be on the field so the humans will not have many chances.
Just pointing out what I see as the obvious, BUT, all I know is no matter what your strategy (and yes I’ve played out a CRAP load of strategies in my head) you will be compromising something, whether it is you getting scored on, or you having to not score on other robots.
Think about the best strategy you think will take place on the field, and then just think about the cons of it. Not the pros.
P.S. If you can come up with a strategy that you think has no compromises, PM or IM me and we’ll talk about how wrong you are… 
Regarding the vulnerability of robots pinning another while the PS scores in its trailer, that will be true in the first 100 seconds of the match, but in the final 20 seconds, it’s more likely for super cells to be scored by PSs than by robots. A teamwork pinning strategy could be decisive in the case of an alliance having super cells to score.
assumeing that there will be super cells to throw. if by some chance you shut your opponets out the previous match you lose what? 3 super cells I think? Supercells will not be a huge thing this season, they will be the spoilers of 2007, rarely played
Stogi, yes we are just talking about theoretical strategies based on assumed circumstances and robot capabilities but speaking here is very useful. You’re right, no strategy is ever completely without flaw but what we’re trying to do here is get feedback on prospective strategies. Shoot me an IM When you get a chance tho.
To get back on topic, A friend and I came to a realization this week. For most robots, including our own, it’ll be extremely difficult to get and score a single isolated ball (Super Cell) in 20 seconds. So we figured out the best way for our team to score them:
We’d make sure that both of our Human Players on either end have at least one Super Cell engaged by the last 30 seconds of the match and that our robot has 5 or more balls ready to be scored. Then in the final 30 seconds we’d wait for a robot to go anywhere close to one of our human players on either end and try to pin them in front of the airlock with the help of one of our teammates. The instant those final 20 seconds come around our human player would then have to lob a single Super Cell over the wall into your opponents trailer which is incredibly easy. At this time we’d score any balls we have in our possession and so would our team mate. If timed correctly the robots would only have to be stationary for 5-10 seconds at the most but we’d have the opportunity to score 20 or more points.
Of course that strategy would have it’s flaws but it might be worth looking into.
That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking for a winning alliance strategy. Our scouting team will be looking for empty cell runners (it will take the full 100 seconds available for one robot to deliver the four empty cells) as well as attack 'bots (shooters or dumpers). We have a shooter bot that can pick up moon rocks from the regolith and believe that the winning alliance will have two attack 'bots and one empty cell runner.
What do you think the perfect empty cell runner looks like? It could have bin that is exactly at the outpost height but probably better to have a efficient ball harvester that will always get the dropped cell. It should shoot or dump into the airlock. Pushing the balls through the airlock is not efficient and prone to having the empty cell stolen by the opposing alliance.
Blocking the outpost will also be a strategy, preventing access to the empty cells. The best defense against this is to have the outpost retain as many moon rocks as possible. In fact, the outpost should only take shots that are easy shots at the beginning. At the end game, most robots will try to be mid-field to avoid the super cells and should be easy targets.
I’m not sure what it would look like, but it will be specialized to run empty cells quickly with no chance of losing one to the opposition. It should run four empty cells in less than 100 seconds. That will cover approximately 120 feet in that time (three and a half round trips) with time for picking up and dropping off empty cells. I don’t think it should pick them up from the floor because of the chance of an opponent 'bot swooping in, bumping, and stealing. It must be a positive holding mechanism that operates quickly because the runner 'bot will be an easy target while sitting still.
Yeah, most teams are building a scoreing robot this year, so any cell-runners will be highly prized and grabbed up quickly in the final rounds.
I realize that the human player will have a very hard chance of scoring, but the limits that the human has the robot has also. The aim for FIRST is to show kids about engineering and science. Yes, the pinning idea will score you major points, but where is the engineering in only making a chassis that has a lot of resistance?
There is a ton of engineering that would have to go into a robot designed to pin other robots. In order to be able to reliably pin other robots you will likely need either more maneuverability, more force or both. Getting either of those two aspects in a robot this year is quite difficult and will require significant engineering (optimized drive system, propeller/fan propulsion, or other unique robot components). Your team may feel that it is not inspirational to design a robot with such a “vanilla” function, but many teams see the elegance in selecting a strategic niche of the game and designing a robot that can fulfill that role.
Well said. Crab drives are very difficult engineering feats, with non-trivial control system problems to solve. A crab drive 'bot may be the best to apprehend and push another robot this year. And nobody suggests you wouldn’t want to fill the victim’s trailer while you’re pushing him, either.
Coordinating a teamwork strategy within an alliance presents its own challenges that will task the leadership, social, and organizational skills of your team. FIRST is about math, science, and engineering, but it’s also about a lot of other things, including management, leadership, cooperation, and teamwork.