Welcome to the 2020 Offseason Challenge designed for TDU's
offseason in anticipation of next season's game. Offseason
activities help our team stay engaged and also learn new
skills when it comes to developing our robots for the
competition. Although this was designed with only the
members of TDU in mind feel free to adapt and change it to
your needs should you want to use it.
Game
This offseason your challenge is to quickly build a robot
to pick up as many of the 5 inch (127mm) Steamworks balls
from the 2017 competition and deliver them back to your
alliance.
There will be a single alliance of two robots working
together to score as many points as possible.
Both robots start on the same 2020 initiation line and
pick up balls from the other end of the field as well as
the balls in the 2020 starting positions in the trench and
under the Rendezvous point.
To test your driving skills there will also be an
additional two robots playing defence during teleop
between the two Initiation lines but not within the
Rendezvous zone. These will be driven by the team not
currently competing on the field.
Normal FRC game timings will be used, where the first 15
seconds will be autonomous and the final 2 minutes 15
second teleoperated.
Field
The 2020 FRC competition field will be used. Robots start
on the initiation line. Balls start in the two Rendezvous
points.
The Scoring zone is centered against the far alliance wall
is a 1m by 2m zone bordered by timber edges 35mm high and
70mm wide around the three open sides.
The 2020 game Target and Loading zones are not used in
this game.
Scoring
A match is played by a single alliance of two teams
(instead of the usual six) working together to score the
most points by transporting balls from the two Rendezvous
points and into the Scoring zone at the far end of the
field.
The robots get an additional point for every lap they do
of the generator.
The remaining team will be driving two defence robots, but
won't get any points from the match. They can only slow
down scoring of points by the other two teams.
Endgame
In the last 30 seconds robots can get additional points by
doing laps of the generator. Each lap has the same value
as scoring four balls during teleop.
Point Values
Task |
Autonomous |
Teleop |
Endgame |
Moving off initiation line |
10 |
N/A |
N/A |
Ball scored |
10 |
4 |
4 |
Generator lap |
N/A |
1 |
16 |
Each team will get to play six matches, three with each of
the two other teams as alliance partners, and three as
defense. The total number of points scored within a match
will be credited to both teams of the alliance. The team
with the highest average score is the overall winner.
Teams will be cycled through the matches, playing in
position 1, position 2 or defense from the other end of
the field.
There will be nine matches in total, with each team
playing six scoring matches and three defense matches.
Penalties
Penalties by the scoring teams will be added to the score
of the defence team, and penalties by the team playing
defense will be credited to the alliance they are playing
against.
Infraction |
Teleop |
Deliberately pushing balls |
10 |
Pinning (as defined in the 2020 game manual) |
10 |
Shooting, launching or flinging balls in the air
|
4 per ball |
Defense robot moving during auto |
100 |
Defense robot contacting a robot in the rendezvous
zone or either sector
|
40 |
Event
You have 9 weeks to build, practice, test and evolve your
robot.
Software
A cut down version of this year's code with the team's
framework will be made available to help get the software
underway given the short time-frame. It will still require
a lot of effort to develop the subsystems, sequences and
autonomous routines.
Restrictions
-
Most importantly, build time is the greatest
restriction. There is just over a month to build, test
and practice, requiring a very fast build, like what
would be done for prototyping.
-
Balls must be contained within a robot for
transportation back to your alliance. Balls may not be
bulldozed back.
-
Only parts that were legal in the 2020 FRC competition
can be used.
-
You have at your disposal a kit base (including PDP,
Roborio etc), prototyping wood and a variety of
motors/gearboxes etc.
-
As there are multiple teams building with the same
resources, please be frugal with motors etc.
-
There is no limit to the number of balls that a robot
can hold.
-
The robot perimeter is limited to the maximum kit bot
dimensions plus two sides that can extend out 300mm.
-
Robots are limited to 700mm high so that they fit
under the control panel.
Hints