Weighty Matters

by Tom Eng

FTC Engineer

This year’s game, Ring It Up!, has a Corner Goal Bonus where an alliance can earn extra points by placing special weighted rings on a Corner Goal structure.  The weighted rings look identical to the standard rings, but they weigh approximately three times as much as the standard rings.

HiTechnic has a new LEGO MINDSTORMS force sensor (HiTechnic product number NFS1074) that is ideal for measuring the weights rings.  The sensor has a receptacle that accepts a MINDSTORMS cross axle piece.  As force is transmitted through the cross axle piece, the sensor outputs a value that can be read by the MINDSTORMS NXT.

The new force sensor looks like a HiTechnic/LEGO light sensor to the LEGO NXT.  When using LabView or RobotC, you configure the sensor as an ambient light sensor (i.e., a light sensor with the active LED turned off).  The raw output of the sensor (and not the normalized output) can be used to determine the force in grams applied to the cross axle using the following table,

There is a Technical Document (FTC Technical Document #FTC-TD-0002-Rev-004) available on the FTC website that describes in detail how to use the new HiTechnic force sensor using LabView or RobotC.  The document includes code samples for displaying output from the sensor.

It’s also possible to build a mechanical mechanism that can be used to measure the weight of a ring.  There is another Technical Document (FTC Document #FTC-TD-0003-Rev-001) that describes how you can build a LEGO MINDSTORMS scale to check for the presence of a weighted ring.

The two technical documents mentioned above describe two approaches for measuring the weight of the rings.  However, there is an endless variety of techniques that you can use to get the job done.  I hope that you will find a technique that works best for you and your robot so that you can score some bonus points using the corner goals this season.  Best of luck and have a great season!!!

The Ring It Up! Game Forum is now open!

Almost two weeks have passed since the Ring It Up! manuals were released and I'm sure you've got some questions on what is and isn't legal.

To get the official answers to your questions, visit the FTC Game Forum, which opened today at 12 PM EST.

If you're an FTC veteran back for another season, you'll notice changes to the forum. There are now only three categories to submit your questions to - Robot Inspection and Build Rules, Game Play and Rules and Everything Else.

Before submitting a question to the forum please read the manuals to ensure you're question hasn't already been addressed. The forum is graciously managed by volunteers, please respect their time.

Once you've checked the manuals and haven't found answers to your questions, filter them through the guidelines that the Game Design Committee will use this season. Ask yourself:

1. Could this damage or disable another robot?
2. Could this damage the playing field?
3. Could this hurt somebody?
4. Is there a rule that prohibits this?
5. If everybody did this, would game play be impossible?

If you still don't have an answer, submit it to the forum. Questions are typically answered within 24 hours. However, during event season, questions are not answered from Thursday, 12PM EST, through Sunday night.

Remember, it's a good idea to review the FTC Game Forum a few days before your planned event to make sure your team is following the latest decisions from the GDC. And, while we're on the topic of things to check before tournaments, FTC occasionally releases revisions to the manuals. You should periodically check to make sure you have the latest version. These are published on the Ring It Up! Game Page.

Game hints round up

We had a lot of fun here at FTC HQ putting up game hints and seeing all the guesses and theories.  I thought I'd go ahead and repost all of the game hints (and non-hints) and explain them.  Enjoy!

Friday, August 17 -

Hints:

“Lift across the Country”

“Ringing Phones”

[Photo] Table contains ring-shaped objects

Red Herrings:

Robo-bus - we just thought it was cool that someone had a VW with the license "ROBOBUS".

Tuesday, August 21 –

Hints:

[Photo] Telephone poles resembling center rack and dispensers

Red Herrings:

None

Tuesday, August 28 –

Hints:

[Photo] Olympic Rings

Red Herring:

[Photo] Olympians, torch, etc. - the other content of this photo had nothing to do with the game.

Thursday, August 30 –

Hints:

“How will your robot compliment your alliance mate’s robot?” – alluding to the end game robot lift.

[Video] War Games – Tic Tac Toe scene

Red Herrings:

None

Tuesday, September 4 –

Hints:

“Ring us”

[Photo] Telephone operator

Red Herrings:

“Down to the wire”

“Ducks in a row”

Thursday, September 6 –

“Precious game hint” – Precious is the name given to the ring in Lord of the Rings

[Photo] Dark Tower - From Lord of the Rings

Red Herring:

[Photo] Dark Tower – the content of the photo is unrelated to the game.

How did you spend your Saturday?

by JoAnn Halloran

FTC Partner Services Manager

Usually, my kickoff Saturday is spent in the office, (wo)manning the phones and crossing my fingers that everything will run flawlessly. This year, I had the great privilege of attending the Massachusetts FTC Kick-Off event. Our MA FTC Affiliate Partner, Loretta Bessette, organized this event, Jen Price, Principal of the beautiful Newton North High School, hosted it and our friends at PTC, our Official CAD and Collaboration Sponsor, sponsored it.

With several hundred people in attendance, the air was crackling with enthusiasm and anticipation.

We listened to inspiring speakers, including our organizer, Loretta Bessette, our host, Jen Price, Robin Saitz, Sr. VP of Solutions Marketing and Communications for PTC and Amy Kukulya, an Oceanographic Engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

What was particularly cool for me is that this is the first STEM activity I have attended where every single speaker was a woman. 

We broke for enthusiastically attended workshops with titles as diverse as “Advanced Creo: Kinematics and Simulation using Creo” and “Icy Challenges of an AUV”.  After the workshops, we all returned to the theater to see the field, watch the game video and animation, and to ask (or in my case, answer) questions about the game.

Every year I am surprised by the thoughtfulness and quality of the questions that are asked. Even with limited exposure to Ring It Up!, teams were thinking about strategy; build rules and penalties in clever and sometimes devious ways. Sometimes the best answer Loretta and I could give was "check the manual, and then post your question to the forum", so before you can ask about it, here's the scoop on the forum.

The FTC Game Q&A Forum goes live on September 18th. We really want you to read the manual before you post your questions. If your question is about strategy, please filter them through the guidelines that the Game Design Committee will be using this season, and ask yourself:

1.            Could this damage or disable another robot?

2.            Could this damage the playing field?

3.            Could this hurt somebody?

4.            Is there a rule that prohibits this?

5.            If everybody did this, would game play be impossible?

If the answer to all of these questions is NO, please post your question. If the answer to any of these questions is YES, please re-think your strategy.

We hope you enjoy playing Ring It Up! as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you!

Down to the wire

We're down to the last two days and I know everyone is as anxious and excited as we are at FTC headquarters for the release of the new game.  I've followed all the comments on Facebook and the forums and it's been fun to see all those theories.  And now that we're so close to Kickoff, here's one more precious game hint to keep you guessing.

I hope everyone has a blast Saturday!

The home stretch

We're down to the wire with less than a week to go before the new game is unveiled!  Are you ready to play?

With the clock ticking down to kick-off, it's a good time to think about whether you have all your ducks in a row.  is your team registered and paid?  Robot kit or parts ordered?  Student information entered into STIMS?  These are all critical administrative actions each team needs to complete for the upcoming season.  Remember, if you're having trouble with any of these systems, you can ring us Monday - Friday and we'll step you through any issues.