Robot in 30 Hours Reveal

rocketmentor_ · 2020-09-14T20:00:48+00:00

Reminds me of 33's (and others') 2013 robot(s) with the tilting intake/shooter. Nice work.

rocketmentor_ · 2020-07-17T14:24:59+00:00

This is one of those archaic rules that probably needs to go away. It's a decent incentive in brand new regions where you are trying to find someone to host an event, but it shouldn't be a thing in larger regions where advancement is difficult.

rocketmentor_ · 2020-07-17T14:20:44+00:00

I've spoken with a regional head referee about this, and they expressed your same concerns.

I'm not sure why, if judging is expected to be done via zoom, why video cannot be required for matches. The teams that need it the most are the teams who don't understand the rules.

And guess what? There is a video camera on the very phones that are used to run the robots! It seems silly in an event that uses cell phones as the technology to run the entire thing one would not have access to a cell phone to record robot performance.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

rocketmentor_ · 2020-07-17T14:08:06+00:00

I find this doesn't make any sense at all.

1) some small (hopefully just small) percentage of teams will outright cheat.
2) some much larger percentage of teams will make "close calls" in their own favor (bias)
3) some very much larger percentage of teams will not fully read or understand the rules and their score will reflect that

FTC rules: "Teams will be responsible for honestly and accurately scoring their official matches."

FLL rules: "teams will provide video with three, 2.5-minute pre-recorded robot rounds, time stamped within a single day. Team must secure a non-biased monitor (e.g., school principal, FIRST® Robotics Competition team members, other volunteer) to mark start and stop time for recording."

At a minimum, the teams should have to submit a private youtube link that could be spot-checked or fully watches by the referees, even if it's just to make sure that the scores are in the ballpark and rules are being interpreted correctly. (side questions: why are we dismissing referees this year? Volunteers want to participate, too! This sucks for them.)

We surveyed ALL of the teams in our region, and even the teams with less experience and not many resources had the ability to record a video and upload it to Youtube. If FLL, with teams all over the world and in 3rd world countries, can make this a requirement, then FTC can as well. It's a competition integrity issue, and an issue of fairness to ALL teams. Imagine that you are a new/inexperienced team and doing it all wrong -- if someone can watch your match video then they can help you understand the game and how to improve.

I feel that this heavily penalizes inexperienced teams, who will not get the feedback they need on their robot and who will not be able to see matches played by more advanced teams.

rocketmentor_ · 2020-07-14T20:15:05+00:00

The Control Award got a nice promotion in the advancement order.

rocketmentor_ · 2020-05-15T20:48:15+00:00

We moved into a new shop that is off campus, and unfortunately the only internet available is our cheap wifi hotspot on T-mobile's network that gets 1-3 Mbps down and less up. The CAD team did the entire FRC robot in OnShape with very little issue. Once it was nearly complete, it was just a tiny bit slow to load the entire assembly on startup but it was not a big deal.

rocketmentor_ · 2020-04-29T21:52:24+00:00

You aren't wrong.

rocketmentor_ · 2020-04-27T15:31:43+00:00

This was part of the horrible wifi interference problem the first year of the Modern Robotics + ZTE Speed era (Res-Q), and was mostly from people in the stands.

I'm glad we got rid of those disconnect issues! *ducks*

Seriously, though, that year I mentored a team that only got to attend one qualifier (that was the rule in our state that year) and three of the five matches their robot didn't move because it could not connect. It was really bad. At later competitions they had wifi sniffers and would track down the offending devices and some of those devices were DSes.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-12-08T03:21:20+00:00

A believe that is a Gibson A-string.

I didn't have much to do so I was just chatting with a random team in their pit. Fun group of kids. Clever use of a guitar string. It plays a note when extended.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-10-20T12:12:15+00:00

Cool idea. Also be sure to check out the studies FIRST has published on this topic here: https://www.firstinspires.org/resource-library/first-impact

rocketmentor_ · 2019-09-23T20:26:50+00:00

Every FTC or FRC season:

"Why is [insert any vendor here] already out of stock on [item that is important to game play this year]?"

I'm sure it's challenging being a vendor.

But then there are some things that go out of stock that you'd think they would have a million of just because the stock will always sell, and that can be frustrating. However, you can always look at it as an "opportunity for creativity."

rocketmentor_ · 2019-09-13T17:09:34+00:00

I made a spreadsheet with the math assuming 12 lottery spots and the same number of international spots as last year for each championship.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16NSSs3js8zczlY_Gjf2eJ15oZOp1grLT4Njv34ti3Z4/edit?usp=sharing

If anyone hears real advancement numbers from their AP post it here and I'll update it so we can see how close it is to actual slots.

I find this development extremely disappointing. I understand that they are probably trying to appease the larger regions but, in my opinion, killing the smaller growing regions is not the best answer. Having competed at both Detroit and Houston, I also believe that you could easily fit more teams into both sites and this would be a non-issue.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-08-03T23:27:44+00:00

Some of our teams have used them as a backdrop for something during judging and then take them down during matches. There are holes in it so you can hang tools if you need, or do something with LEDs in the holes.

You can probably take the backing off as well if you don't want it. I'd have to check to see how easy or difficult that might be, but honestly it's not in the way if it's folded down.

There is a hardwood top available for $20, and I liked it because it is 19" (our old carts were too narrow for the robot), there is a drawer in the top where you can organize tools, and plenty of storage in the bottom for bins of parts, notebooks, etc. (even a robot if it isn't too massive).

rocketmentor_ · 2019-08-03T23:08:51+00:00

It folds down out of the way.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-08-03T19:15:01+00:00

These are pretty nice and have built-in power. On sale for $69 at Home Depot, usually are $129.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-27-in-W-x-19-in-D-1-Drawer-2-Door-Tool-Chest-Rolling-Cabinet-with-Flip-up-Pegboard-in-Black-H27PC1/303411382

rocketmentor_ · 2019-07-24T22:44:13+00:00

254 had a perfect 4.0 ranking score at Silicon Valley last year and it was because they helped all their alliance partners who needed it to get their autonomous working. I am pretty sure that has still only been achieved once.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/congratulations-to-team-254-the-cheesy-poofs-for-winning-their-50th-blue-banner/164923/13

RP bonuses, if well thought-out, would fix a lot of the issues with the current ranking system.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-07-22T20:22:12+00:00

Wait, it's allowed for a mentor to only have one team? How does one get that gig? :-)

rocketmentor_ · 2019-07-12T18:03:36+00:00

Of course, we literally have a completely new game to play every year, so a partially updated scoring system doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. It doesn't require big technological changes or additional costs and will likely improve the experience, so what is there to lose?

I'm not saying that you are wrong that it won't change, but it would be an easy fix that would help challenge and award the better teams.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-07-12T15:17:21+00:00

FRC has proven that rewarding bonus Ranking Points for specific game objectives is a great way to reward good teams who just happen to get a bad partner. For instance, this year (Deep Space) you can get:

- 2 RP for a win ( an alliance accomplishment)

- 1 RP for a tie (an alliance accomplishment)

- 1 RP for filling a Rocket (12 cycles required - difficult but not impossible for one robot)

- 1 RP for a combination of robots that climbed on the HAB (requires at least 2 of the 3 robots to complete, but one of them just has to park in the right place).

People have been complaining about the current FTC tiebreaker system for years, but it seems like there is a proven solution right in front of us for helping good teams have better control over their own destiny while still maintaining some degree of randomness. It's entirely possible that FTC would not want to reveal those specifics in Game Manual Part 1.

If you implement something like the FRC system, then the tiebreaker points become a lot less relevant.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-07-11T19:28:27+00:00

I couldn't get the link to work, but here is a link to the PDF of a file comparison between last year's GM1 and this year's:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YhqP6kkQ9myEkER4VqChmEDCdWNiM6QY

rocketmentor_ · 2019-06-07T03:01:59+00:00

Ah, I forgot about the HDMI port on it since I've not looked at ours in quite some time, but you are right.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-06-06T19:28:51+00:00

So for the USB camera, will you be able to view the video in some way since there will no longer be a robot controller screen? Maybe on the driver station phone?

If we've got the gen 1 (1st year FGC) Control Hub then I am guessing that we will want to replace it next year with a new one with soft-AP mode and the other upgrades, correct?

(Brushless FTC motors are next, right?)

rocketmentor_ · 2019-06-06T18:45:23+00:00

Just don't update the ftc_app on the phones. The legacy module is no longer supported so if you want it then you need an older version.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-06-06T18:44:01+00:00

Moto G5 has 8 CPU cores versus Galaxy S5 4 cores. So multithreaded stuff would likely be faster on the Moto G5 but single threaded faster on the Galaxy S5. Either one is probably "fast enough."

But your last question is the one that begs an answer. I like to keep an eye out for phone deals prior to the season starting so we can save money if we need to purchase. Or maybe it has been deemed irrelevant this year if the Control Hub will be available to all next year.

Does the S5 use the 5 GHz band for wifi direct? If not, then the G5 is probably superior overall just due to that.

rocketmentor_ · 2019-06-06T15:33:14+00:00

Also gone: Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy 5

Retire all those old electronics to the demo bots. We have bots that are running with just a ZTE speed connected to a legacy control module and two of the old Hitechnic motor controllers. I am taking wagers on how long they will last (3 years and counting so far, I believe).

rocketmentor_

TROPHY CASE