Scrimmage Review

By Anuhya, Vance, Alex, Sol, Georgia, Krish, Tanvi, Jai, and Aarav

Task: Review our performance at the first scrimmage of the season

Earlier today, we had our first scrimmage at Woodrow Wilson! This was our first proper opportunity to interact with other teams and their robots this season and we got a chance to troubleshoot any design issues with our robot. We entered this scrimmage with our beater bar system in the vague shape of a triangle and a linear slide with a “scoopagon” as our outtake. Overall, because of a lack of driver practice, we experienced quite a few issues without our linear slide and beater bar system, but it was an incredible learning opportunity!

Play by Play

Match 1: 9 to 0 Win

Our auton wasn't enabled. We also had a bad servo configuration on our beater bar so we were essentially a “push bot” for this first match. After the autonomous period, when our drivers went to pick up their controllers, they noticed a driver station issue, rendering our robot useless for this match. We scored 0 points and our alliance partners scored the other 9 points.

Match 2: 13 to 16 Loss

Our auton wasn't enabled again because we thought it would cause our robot to crash. Our outtake wasn't working so we ended up using our beater bar to score. We managed to score two pixels but, because of a lack of driver practice and an unconventional and unplanned method of scoring, we knocked them off the backdrop into backstage. Instead of our initial plan of getting pixels from the pixel stacks, we took pixels from the wing. We wanted to take pixels from the pixel stacks because we wouldn't have to go diagonally through the opposing team's area but it wasn't possible because of the level of precision needed to score from the pixel stacks using a beater bar.

Match 3: 18 to 46 Loss

Once again, our auton wasn't enabled. We continued using our beater bar to score. We were able to score 2 pixels on the backdrop this time and we took pixels from the stacks like we had initially planned instead of from the wings. We got a lot more pixels but in the process of transferring them through our beater system, we ended up loosing quite a few of them. Our opponent got 30 points in the way of penalties, so they won. We haven't found the right balance in speeds for our beater bar's rotations, nor do we know how stiff the tabs should be. We need to do a lot more experimentation so the beater bar can be used properly to both retain pixels, take pixels from both the wings and pixel stacks and possibly score pixels on the randomization lines and the backdrop.

Match 4: 37 to 17 Win

Our auton still wasn't enabled but we had hopes we could get it to work before the next match. We continued using our beater bar to score, and we got 3 pixels on the backdrop and one backstage. By picking up pixels from the wings, we also got some level of precision with our beater bar and human player because we managed to successfully create a mosaic on the backdrop! This was our first mosaic of the season!

Match 5: 19 to 15 Loss

The highlight of the scrimmage was definitely the last match. Our auton was enabled but didn't end up working as we intended and we scored one pixel on the backdrop but we managed to drop it by hitting the backdrop with too hard a force.

Next Steps

One of the biggest issues we had throughout this meet was with our beater bar system. The “tray” we were using to keep the pixels moving through the beater bar is made out of MDF with a chiseled tip so it can lay flat against the mats. However, because of friction with the mats, it kept fraying, meaning it acted as a slight barrier for the pixels entering the beater bar. As soon as possible, we need to replace the MDF with both a thinner, more sturdy and frictionless material. Our outtake is also notoriously unreliable, especially because of how bad our servo configuration and wire management is. Our motor placement for extending the linear slide could also be improved. Overall, we want to work on improving this current iteration of our robot for now instead of completely changing our build.