During my team’s recent States tournament, the fields used were brand new and so soaked with anti-static spray that we could not push caps with our intake due to friction, and would instead get stuck in our intake and sometimes even lifted the robot upwards (We tested the fields and determined that the friction was equivalent to having two rubber bands on each surface of the cap on a regular field). This condition ended up detrimental to our autonomous program for the first half of qualifications and we had to sacrifice the ability to flip caps for autonomous consistency. Additionally, other robots with weaker shooters had to take two shots to toggle each flag.
Has any other team experienced this during their states tournament? Also, will this be the condition in Worlds?
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probably. the fields at worlds will all be brand new (meaning they will be harder to turn), and each sprayed with anti-static spray.
We were at the same tournament and noticed the Same conditions. At all large events there will be these conditions.some things you can do to compensate are testing your robot under these conditions before the tournaments and adding more rubber bands onto your catapult/puncher.
Aside the from the anti-static spray, the brand new tiles at Worlds are not covered with a fine layer of friction-reducing dust, and the surfaces of the game objects are not abraded. Ask anyone who played in Round Up what a nightmare new playing objects can be. Time to find or buy some new(er) stuff for testing.