I’m going to be the main driver for our team at our next competition. Main meaning that I operate the drive and intake. My partner will feed the launcher. I’ve been pondering a sort of philisophical question which is when the match begins and I start driving aroud looking for balls to grab is it worth it to go really out of my way to get to the bonus balls first.
I mean If I’m sitting there next to a bunch of normal balls and theres a bonus ball across the field should I go get it? Should I spend the extra time filling up my robot with 4 bonus balls first thing?
Also, we have a overhead rolling intake with flaps that works ok for stacks but it really shines when it comes to balls on the ground. Would it be worth it to make a run around the field first thing and knock down stacks, or, even better do that during autonomous?****
It depends on how fast you are, and how fast yoir opponents are. There are a few questions you have to answer:
Can you score three green in the time it would take you to get the one orange?
Will your opponent be able to get that ball while you do something else?
There are 100 pts of bonus balls and 150 pts of normal up for grabs. Each stack has 10 pts of bonus, 15 pts of normal.
Two of my teams were in the finals of our league and the opponents spent the whole time seeking bonus balls, getting 8 of them. My teams scored their preloads well and took the easier greens and won 211 to 160.
Another thing to consider is can you accurately score all the bonus balls that you pick up with accuracy? If you can, then it might be worth it to go for the bonus balls near your alliance zone. If not however, I would just go for balls at random and you might score a bonus ball or two by chance. Also, I don’t think it would be worth it to knock down the pyramids as this would waste a lot of precious time that you could be scoring.
This would be a good thought I have seen it with the likes of 2Z and 2R; however, as stated earlier in this post you need a fast drive to get this in autonomous.
Also it would take a lot of driver practice since, depending on the location of the robot can differ the results of making the shot.
Hecka worth it, scoring 4 Bonus Balls is literally worth scoring 4 green balls twice. If you can score accurately and quickly then it’s the best strategy. Imagine–if you score 2 loads of 4 Bonus balls you’ve saved at least 20-30 seconds of scoring another couple of green balls that you can now use to score even more.
It’s impossible to answer this question without knowing the capabilities of the robot.
How many balls can you grab at full speed without scattering them?
Once you know the answer to that question, you can determine the maximum number of balls you can grab at once. Once you know this, aim for the largest point density you can grab without scattering
for example, if you can grab 3 without scattering and you have the following scenarios
1 bonus ball vs 3 regular balls = aim for the regular balls (more points)
1 bonus ball + 1 regular ball vs 3 regular balls = aim for the bonus ball + regular ball because of higher density (less balls same points, lower chance of intake failing or more chances to grab balls)
4 regular balls vs 2 bonus balls = aim for bonus balls since 2 bonus balls is worth more than 3 regular balls (remember, this scenario assumes you can only grab 3 balls without scattering)
Furthermore, the scenario above is assuming that the ball positions are equidistant. For the most part, distance is negligible due to human reaction time.
Theoretically, you want to design a robot that doesn’t scatter balls. if you scatter balls, you merely push them in a position that favors the opponents, or you waste time to get into a position to avoid pushing balls towards the opponent.
I think that everyone can agree that bonus balls are worth more points and will often times make the difference between matches. However it is really a matter of how much time do you want to spend to load up 4 bonus balls when you may be fast enough to score 2 stacks of balls that would be 5 balls per cycle resulting in more points. so It is a question of time and the most time efficient way I see is to pick up one stack at a time because you are basically securing 5 balls which isn’t as good as 8 but will be faster than hunting individual bonus balls. In the end it is a really situational topic as if teams practice enough they could possibly snag four bonus balls with good efficiency.