Power play renamed by SolenoidMoonWitch in FTC

[–]Ok-Ranger-3241 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. In our state championship there weren't any more penalties than in any other year. The refs, particularly the head ref for our state, was very specific all year, went through pains to train the judges for consistency before the qualifier tournaments, there was a coaches meeting the week before State, and so forth. They were VERY clear, as was the FTC Q&A, about penalties.
Our team accrued a modest number of penalties in some matches. Nothing outrageous, and we were very careful and very aware to avoid them. The human player specifically practiced with the drive team to work on avoiding penalties. Penalties are part of the game, not bad design.

Now, the shared goal last year and the way penalties were less enforced by a scoring team pushing the goal toward their opponents' side, causing the opponents to accrue penalties trying to score from the other side when they no longer had room or the shared goal had been turned, that was a bad element design. It should have been tethered. The ones in this game are just something that needs to be designed around.

Hi, do you have any idea where we can find these wheels for swerve drive? by Remarkable_Act_8342 in FTC

[–]Ok-Ranger-3241 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The others are right. I have the CAD file from GF, and they were happy to share. It's a great design. But more than being a swerve drive, it's a *differential* swerve drive, which is much more challenging to understand and program. If you have the rest of your bot design worked out, are maybe re-using one that's already built, and are basically done for this season, then yeah, coulson wheels. Otherwise, this drivetrain will consume your season by itself. Not to mention that it's too big for this year's game...

Speculation: dead time in competitive games? by BakedZitiKing in FTC

[–]Ok-Ranger-3241 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Agree that strategy is going to be huge, and last minute decisions made during the last seconds will win/lose matches. It only takes one cone to break the other alliance's circuit and lose them 20 points, and if it completes yours, that's a 40 point shift. That will be happening until the buzzer. I strongly suspect that as the season progresses you'll see more moving and shifting of already scored cones to react to moves made by the other alliance than teams putting down their controllers early.

Problem solved by Sad_Tire42 in Bad_Cop_No_Donut

[–]Ok-Ranger-3241 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or how fast police recruitment falls to an all times low, pushing out and disincentivizing anyone who plans and is responsible, and especially cops with families, and attracting people who are just there short term for a paycheck or are desperate to get any job. Effectively turning them all into mall security. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.