How Important Are The Back 9???
How important are the back 9 on the other side of the field??? Anyone who has ever driven in FIRST can say that depth perception is really really bad, especially this year with a giant rack blocking your view. So would you focus your resources and stratagy on getting those back nine? I need opinions on this stratagy… Ignor the back nine or go for them?
The best robots will be able to pick up ringers from any position and score with them. Wether it be from the chute, the floor, the leaning back 9, or the rack.
For strategic purposes… If your going for the sider legs on the other side of the field, the back nine would be a good place to get ringers so you don’t have to go to your home zone.
I agree with you that depth perception in a FIRST Competition is poor and it is likely that the back 9 would be more of a last resort. I would also start a poll for this one;)
And what about ptting ringers or spoilers on the side of the rack that is not visible to the driver?
Only good way to do that is using the cam…
And also about that back 9…is it possible to go in the beggining of the match and make all 9 of them fall on the ground so it is harder for the opposing alliance to return to the home zone and lift bots? (i know its against the FIRST spirit, but not all teams are working with the FIRST spirit)…
I coached a few matches back in 2005, and yes, seeing their home row back then was difficult.
That said, I don’t believe that it’ll be particularly hard to see the back nine, provided no robots are blocking that view. The objects on the rack are largely transparent, and it should be pretty easy to see around them. If you can’t spot it from your player station, have your human player slide around in the box and try to look for you.
I really don’t see the difficulty in this. All you need to do is have a preset height that your arm automatically goes to to pick up the back 9. Then just drive the robot forward until it doesn’t move anymore (because the arm is hitting the wall), lift the arm and your done. This would require your arm to be sturdy but thats all part of design. Not everything has to be done by the eye, there are sensors that can tell you when you’re close or have a ringer. Robot feedback is very helpful and even seeing a change in power consumption of a motor can tell you a lot.
The real issue with the back 9 is if they’re knocked to the floor. There is a pretty big difference between trying to pick up a verticle tube and picking one up off the floor. If FIRST said knocking them down will probably get you a herding penalty then I’d know that you don’t need to design a grabber to pick tubes up off the floor. If they say instead that knocking them down is okay then to be a great ringer you’ll need to pick up from the floor. Remember you only have 7 tubes and 2 spoilers in your player station. A lot to get you going but a team of good ringers will probably go over that amount even if its only by a couple tubes. There are also only 2 chutes to hand ringers to robots so in theory the third ringer bot should go to the other side and use the 9.
We will probably try to right some code to use the camera to pick up objects. However, due to the nature of the ringers and the fact there might be many piled together, it might prove to be hard.
I agree unless FIRST declares it illegal the first thing a good defensive robot will do is knock all 9 down.
Oh and there are 9 ringers at your alliance station and 2 spoilers
<G09> POSSESSION - ROBOTS may only have 1 (one) GAME PIECE in their POSSESSION at any time during the match. Inadvertent bulldozing of GAME PIECES while the ROBOT moves around the field is allowed. Controlled “herding” of a single GAME PIECE lying on the floor is permitted as long as no other GAME PIECE is in the POSSESSION of the ROBOT. Herding of multiple GAME PIECES, or herding of a GAME PIECE on the floor while in POSSESSION of another GAME PIECE is not permitted (as this would be considered POSSESSION of more than one GAME PIECE).
Interpret as you will. Knocking 9 over on purpose doesn’t seem inadvertent to me.
Yes, but if you hit each of the 9 tubes in the right order so that you’re only touching one at a time, you don’t break the multiple possession rule.
Oh, and if the chutes are filled up, your humans can still throw them.
I think the back nine are going to be pretty important. Without them, you’re limited to 3 keepers (and I doubt most alliances will score all of them, or most of them) and the 9 ringers from the human player. That’s not that much. Also, if all of your robots can only take tubes from the human player, you’re limited to three tubes per team, which amount to a lot of robots driving around doing nothing.
Picking tubes from the back nine is going ot be hard. Scoring on the opponent’s side of the field will be even harder. But that might what separates the boy-bots from the man-bots 
It is faster to get the back 9 than it will be to load from the human player, especially if your 2 alliance partners are competing for those SAME tubes.
Pavan.
I think what the tetras taught us is that for 95% of all teams its going to be faster to use a human loader. For a very select number of teams, that have clever and expertly designed systems for loading ringers off the floor, it will be faster to get them that way. The reason being that it takes almost no time at all to get a ringer through the chute. You just drive to a spot and its placed at a nice friendly height and can be moved slightly by the human to make it easy to grab. I’m not even convinced traffic will be an issue, two chutes should be enough for three robots, not that traffic jams won’t occur, just that they won’t cause a hold up of more than probably a single tube over the course of the match. I think the issue is going to be running out of ringers at which point those 9 on the other end of the field are going to be real gems, or it might just be time to grab a spoiler or two and play defensive for the rest of the match. Time will tell but I bet the fabled 9 on the other end of the field get ignored.
Hmm… if no bot ever crosses center line… then you have 12 tubes (3k + 9r) place in a 4 x 3 pattern for 16 x 3 + 8 x 4 = 80pt and a 60 pt bonus is 140.
NOt sure if this matters…I just think it is interesting.
when i read the back 9, i didnt think of the ringer, i thought of the 9 spider legs of which you are not going to have ANY form of view… how are drivers going to manage those 3 sets of spider legs and this is gonna be key in strategy.
I think that if teams will be able to put a keeper on the back 9 in auto mode, they will have a massive tactical advantage over their opposing teams
I agree completely. But don’t underestimate the difficulty of that task. How much of the 15 sec will be used just getting your robot to the other side of the field and turning it towards the rack?
And in addition you have to worry that your opponents will have already gotten there first, and will block you from scoring. It is an interesting challenge for the programmers, but without a VERY fast robot, I think you will arrive too late to score most of the time.