6.270 Team 59
Roboteleone's Strategy Page
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Before any of this, you'd probably like to know how well we did to know if it's even worth reading further...

We made it through 2 rounds and were eliminated in the 3rd.

In case you were wondering, we won our first round, the qualifier, by default because our opponents didn't transmit IR. The other two rounds were unimpressive defeats.

We attribute the less than stellar performance to the time crunch we ran into as a result of a last minute rule posting (1/21 Limited to 6 motors) and the fact that 2/3 of the team was gone for 4 days mid-IAP. If we had those 4 days back and were designing our robot for the 6 motor limit rule, we feel strongly that our robot would have been a force to be reckoned with.

As things were, we only tested software for the last 2 days before impounding. Word to the wiser: Test the software and sensors infinitely more than we did.

"What exactly were you planning to do?", you might ask...

Well, in all the times we asked ourselves that question, the best answer we can come up with is that we we were going for broke, trying to make the most high-tech robot in the field. All tolled, we achieved that goal and had one hell of a time doing it.

Thought Process

Here is a brief outline of our strategic thought process:

  • Ver.01b Make a ramp and be an annoying stationary robot.
  • Ver.02b Make a better ramp that extended higher, faster, and with more force than ever seen before.
  • Ver.1b Make a center-ball-swatter + buldozer.
  • Ver.5b Make a bulldozer.
  • Ver.99b Make a ball-collector.

Our last idea ended up sticking. There are any number of reasons for that. Firstly, by the time we got around to the last idea, it was crunch-time. We also used a fair amount of LEGO implementing our fully synchronized drive system that we had decided to utilized prior to choosing a strategy. As well, we had developed our drive system for greater than the number of motors allowed, so there were a couple days of restructuring and rethinking designs.

Ideal Strategy

Our ideal strategy relied on the idea that we would be very agile. We wished to retreive one of our balls before collecting the opponents balls, assuming that the going strategy would be to either have a stationary robot or one that collected one of our balls and returned to it's own side.
  1. Orient (Point 1)
  2. Follow wall to point 2 (green line)
  3. Search for ball (Point 2)
  4. Pick-up ball (Point 2)
  5. Rotate toward opponent's side (Point 2)
  6. Follow wall to point 3 (horz. blue line)
  7. Search for ball (Point 3)
  8. Pick-up ball (Point 3)
  9. Orient towards point 4 (Point 3)
  10. Follow line to point 4 (vert. blue line)
  11. Search for ball (Point 4)
  12. Pick-up ball (Point 4)
  13. Orient towards point 3 (Point 4)
  14. Back-up against wall (Point 4)
  15. Watch for ball to enter opponent's side (Point 4)
  16. Sweep opponent's side for balls until 20 seconds left (vert. yellow line)
  17. Return to our side (violet line)
  18. Win (Point 5)

Final Strategy

The final strategy, code, and/or pseudocode (as we fell short on testing time) did a basic ball collection strategy.
  1. Orient (Point 1)
  2. Follow wall to point 2 (green line)
  3. Search for ball (Point 2)
  4. Pick-up ball (Point 2)
  5. Rotate toward opponent's side (Point 2)
  6. Follow wall to point 3 (horz. blue line)
  7. Search for ball (Point 3)
  8. Pick-up ball (Point 3)
  9. Orient towards point 4 (Point 3)
  10. Follow WALL to point 4 (vert. blue line)
  11. Search for ball (Point 4)
  12. Pick-up ball (Point 4)
  13. Orient towards point 3 (Point 4)
  14. Return to our side (violet line)
  15. Win (Point 5)

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