Re-positioning in the high school game

[Thorondor]

Originally Posted by Spartin

think about if you were in there shooes, how would you feal if you knew that the older teams were going to kick your but in auton.

Um...we were all in their shoes at one point, WITHOUT repositioning. I learned the value of autonomous mode over the course of Clean Sweep and Round Up and thats why in Gateway we programmed 16 autonomous modes for various situations. Also, in round-up we actually didn't have a scoring autonomous mode until world's. (well actually we had the cheater tube but who didn't? ). So i think its unfair to say "how would you feel" because most if not all of us have already been in that situation and were forced to adapt.

[The VEX Raptors]

Originally Posted by Thorondor

Um...we were all in their shoes at one point, WITHOUT repositioning. I learned the value of autonomous mode over the course of Clean Sweep and Round Up and thats why in Gateway we programmed 16 autonomous modes for various situations. Also, in round-up we actually didn't have a scoring autonomous mode until world's. (well actually we had the cheater tube but who didn't? ). So i think its unfair to say "how would you feel" because most if not all of us have already been in that situation and were forced to adapt.

In the years of Clean Sweep and Round Up, there were less teams (and as such less really advanced teams) in the world. The competition back then was easier (we won a Round Up tournament with a cheater tube/defensive autonomous). With more teams, the competition is more difficult, so new teams will have a much higher standard to compete against than they did in Clean Sweep.

And remember, the teams with voices on this forum mostly represent the top fraction of the VRC as a whole. There are 5000 VRC teams worldwide, and this poll really only represents the top 800. We recently started a new younger team (7581V), and none of its members are at all interested in joining this forum. Since the majority of teams around our region are very similar to 7581V, I think many non-forum teams will call for repositioning to be allowed because they are just barely able to build a robot that works in Driver Control, let alone one that can navigate the field without any human assistance.

[Spartin]

Um...we were all in their shoes at one point, WITHOUT repositioning. I learned the value of autonomous mode over the course of Clean Sweep and Round Up and thats why in Gateway we programmed 16 autonomous modes for various situations. Also, in round-up we actually didn't have a scoring autonomous mode until world's. (well actually we had the cheater tube but who didn't? ). So i think its unfair to say "how would you feel" because most if not all of us have already been in that situation and were forced to adapt.

We were in there shoes at one time but now we are older and know more stuff than we did when we started. Actualy i believe they did change the rule in the college about re-positioning your robot.

Well if it changes we are all in for a world of hurt, when it comes to younger teams complaning

Good luck to all teams

[Vex Mundi]

I'm pretty opposed to repositioning, and I'm very glad to see it gone from College. I don't think it's really a good idea in high school either.

What I will mention though is that before repositioning was allowed a LOT of teams didn't write autonomous at all. That number seems to have decreased. Those people are learning something, even if it is just

if (button){
go forward;
wait;
outtake;
}

And arguably, with programming the most important part to teach is the basics. If you know the basics and are interested, you can teach yourself to use those components to do fancier things.

[Thorondor]

Originally Posted by Vex Mundi

And arguably, with programming the most important part to teach is the basics. If you know the basics and are interested, you can teach yourself to use those components to do fancier things.

I agree, but there comes a point where you have to venture out into the world of (god forbid) SENSORS!! AAAAAAH!!!!!!! no but seriously, although repositioning helps the younger teams to compete in autonomous, there should be some "advantage" to using sensors, but that gets too complicated. In cleansweep, the "easy" autonomous was to just drive forward and knock the balls under the wall. In round up there was the cheater tube. I think that instead of making autonomous easier by allowing repositioning, they should add an element that would allow inexperienced teams to actually do something in autonomous, while the more advanced teams could do even more. For example, adding an easily scorable corner goal would allow teams to just simply dump their preloads into the corner goal for minimal points, but its at least something.

[jpearman]

Perhaps you should all start thinking about the different possible autonomous routines and see if repositioning really helps. I will start this off with a few in order of difficulty.

1. Move forward, drop preload onto starting tile - 1 point
2. Drive forward to trough and score preload, some reposition may help - 5 points.
3. Drive forward to high goal over the stack of 5 sacks, some reposition may help = 10 points
4. Drive forward to the stack of 5 sacks, pick them up, return to starting tile, reposition, drive forward to trough and score all 6 - 30 points.
5. Drive forward to the stack of 5 sacks, pick them up, turn and drive to the trough, score all 5 plus the preload, turn or drive (left or tight), cap the other alliance trough - 30 points.

etc.

I think as soon as you get to the higher scoring routines then repositioning is not that useful.

[The VEX Raptors]

Originally Posted by Thorondor

I agree, but there comes a point where you have to venture out into the world of (god forbid) SENSORS!! AAAAAAH!!!!!!! no but seriously, although repositioning helps the younger teams to compete in autonomous, there should be some "advantage" to using sensors, but that gets too complicated. In cleansweep, the "easy" autonomous was to just drive forward and knock the balls under the wall. In round up there was the cheater tube. I think that instead of making autonomous easier by allowing repositioning, they should add an element that would allow inexperienced teams to actually do something in autonomous, while the more advanced teams could do even more. For example, adding an easily scorable corner goal would allow teams to just simply dump their preloads into the corner goal for minimal points, but its at least something.

There are plenty of easy scoring maneuvers for Sack Attack. You just have to look for them. One very obvious easy-score is the fact that your starting tile is a goal.

The fact that these easy scores are somewhat hard to see does negate their use by newer teams. We didn't use the cheater tube until we saw someone else do it at a tournament. The first time we used it in competition, we were one of <10 (out of 27) to do so. We were the tournament champions, and we had one of the most complex autonomous routines at the tournament (score cheater tube, drive backward into opponent).

[Titan Robotics]

In my opinion, autonomous realinement was a perk for gateway, and should not be brought into other games. That being said, I was a fan of autonomous realinement, because it added a cool extra to the game.