ichaelm wrote:You're not allowed to bring any batteries, except spares for your robot.
Whoops
It's been awhile since I've read the rules
Yeah I hope the proctors are stricter this year
Anyone know what the rules are about driving your own bot outside the ring?
Last year, in competition at least, driving yourself out didn't disqualify you, and I don't recall any specifics in the rules about it last year either
Colorado School of Mines
"Yes, he likes that; Alfie! Though personally he prefers to be called Stormaggedon, Dark Lord of All" - The Doctor, Closing Time
ichaelm wrote:You're not allowed to bring any batteries, except spares for your robot.
Whoops
It's been awhile since I've read the rules
Yeah I hope the proctors are stricter this year
Anyone know what the rules are about driving your own bot outside the ring?
Last year, in competition at least, driving yourself out didn't disqualify you, and I don't recall any specifics in the rules about it last year either
NYS 2010 Rules wrote:18. A bot will be declared the winner when the other bot is completely out of the square and
is no longer touching the tape (or once the bot is completely off the ring if a raised ring is used). This definition
applies whether the bot has been forced out by their opponent or leaves under its own power.
I assume there's a similar clause in the rules this year, but the second page of sumo in my rules packet is missing .
This year, any bot that leaves the ring under its own power (i.e. driver error, not being pushed out by the other team) has 5 seconds to reenter the ring or otherwise forfeit the match. The other team may attempt to prevent your bot from reentering the ring. If both bots are outside the ring for 5+ seconds, the lighter bot wins. If the judge thinks you're driving out of the ring accidentally-on-purpose to stall for time, you'll be penalized.
Hershey Science Olympiad 2009 - 2014 Volunteer for Michigan SO 2015 - 2018
JBoyd-NY wrote:... trying to run a double-elimination tournament with more than 20 teams in an hour would be difficult to do (we run two rings at a time in New York to insure that we are finished with preliminary rounds in an hour, and that is difficult to keep track of. With more than 20 teams in an hour, you would have to run at least 3 rings, and would probably run 4 rings at a time just to insure that you finish on time, and I don't believe that any tournament would be able to supply the room or the personnel to run that many rings at one time.) ....
So if 2 rings were run at the same time, how is frequency overlap avoided? 4 teams would be running and only 3 channels are required (although some will have more or secured communications).
Also since the setup can last 2 minutes, the bout 2 minutes, and ~ 2minutes for misc starting and stopping between bouts, the total time for each bout should be around 6 minutes (maybe more maybe less). Since a 26 team, double elimiation tournement requires around 62 bouts, the overall time is 372 minutes or a little over 6 hours of constant action. Some of these teams will be involved in up to 6 of the bouts. I have no idea how it can be managed and not require 2 dedicated people on your team for this one event. I guess I understand why some of the larger states who have 40+ team competitions have decided to replace it with something else.
I've been running 2 rings at C Division States for 4 years and B Division States for 2 years, and ran it at Nationals with 2 rings last year. With each robot capable of operating on 3 different frequencies, I've never had any problem matching up 4 teams, each running on a different frequency. Even if you leave out 49 MHz, there are 6 frequencies available at 27 MHz and 30 available at 75 MHz, so there are a total of 36 available frequencies for those two setups (and teams using 2.4 GHz makes it even easier).
We hold preliminary rounds and a final round specifically to avoid tying up the team members for more than an hour. At the C Division States that means 9 teams compete each hour (I could probably get that done using one ring, but run two rings just to be sure none of the hours run over). The last of the other events is over at 3:00, and the Awards Ceremony doesn't start until 5:00, so we hold the finals at 3:00 - that way, none of the competitors who make the finals have to worry about a potential conflict with another event later in the day.
We run this event successfully in New York State Competition with 54 teams in C Division, with 42 teams in B Division, and the Western Long Island region runs the event and they host 62 teams (although teams are not required to do all events at our Regionals). Breaking it down to 6 preliminary hours (which means 10 teams per hour at Nationals, which has 60 teams competing) and then holding the Finals after the other events are completed accomplishes several things: it means that everyone who competes in the event has to commit to one hour of competition, just like every other event; it gives the kids and the coaches something to do for roughly 45 minutes between finishing their last event and the start of the Awards Ceremony; and by running two rings at a time, I have free time at the end of each hour to rank all of the teams who don't qualify for the finals, so even though my event isn't finished until 45 - 60 minutes after all of the others, I am still handing in my results while other event supervisors are still grading their event.
JBoyd-NY wrote:The rules regarding no recharging stations being available for students were in force last year (Competition, #4). In New York, we've clarified that no recharging facilities would be available since 2007, and in 4 C Division State Competitions, 2 B Division State Competitions, and 1 National Tournament Competition, I've never had a team that had to forfeit a bout because their batteries were dead. As Flavoflav and ichaelm have said, if you need to change batteries after running a maximum of 2 minutes (or 4 minutes in harryk's case), then there is either something very wrong with your robot or your batteries.
The rules restricting the impounded batteries to those that can be used to power the bot were added to the rules last year. A car battery cannot be used to power your bot (it would be way too heavy) and therefore cannot be impounded.
As with all other events in SO that require an impound, everything that you might need to use (extra parts, tools, etc.) must be included in the impound. You are not allowed to bring anything with you when you report for the competition.
Not that it matters here but there are events that require impound of a device but where you do not have to impound the tools that you may need to repair or tune it. If I understand you, you are saying that in Sumobots you must impound anything that you may want to use to work on your robot, but the only batteries that may be impounded are batteries that could be used in the sumobot? So I suppose this would preclude any battery powered tools (soldering iron, cordless screwgun, etc.) unless the batteries used in them could also be used in the sumobot?
In our case there is nothing wrong with either our batteries or robot, it just uses lots of power. I know why we use this much power and I can imagine many non-faulty design reasons why robots might also use up their batteries very quickly. The bottom line seems to be that we need to bring enough batteries to run as many times as we could possibly have to run to finish the entire competition. So what is the maximum possible number of runs that we could be in if we made it all the way to the end at Nationals?
You seem to be the main man here so I was wondering: If our bot goes right to the center of the ring and simply waits for the opponent to come to us so we can push it out of the ring, but every time we start pushing the opposing robot, it runs away, is he/she considered to be stalling? I guess I am just not sure what the definition of stalling is. I would guess that part of the strategy for many robots is to maneuver for position, but if we just allow the competing robot to take whatever position on us that he/she chooses, and then start pushing in that direction, but each time we push the opponent runs to keep from being pushed, is that stalling. What I am getting at is, must we chase down the opponent or are they required to engage if we do not run?
OK, let's try to put these two issues to rest so that the thread can return to discussing robots and strategies:
1. Impound: I have been judging/running impound events since 1997 at the Regional, State and National levels. I've been involved with the vehicle events (wheeled vehicle/scrambler/battery buggy), the bridge/towers/boomilever events, the robot events (robot ramble/robo cross/robo billiards), storm the castle/trajectory, and I'm good friends with the people who run Mission/Junkyard and Bottle Rockets at the State level. I have never been involved in an impound event where just the device was impounded and the competitors were allowed to bring ANYTHING (other than safety goggles) to the competition. If you were to allow students to come back with boxes of tools, spare parts, or anything else, then you'd have to spend time all over again going through those boxes to make sure that everything in them was legal. As stated before, EVERYTHING that you will want to have available to you during your competition in Sumo Bots needs to be impounded. If you need to use power tools, then they will have to be powered by the batteries that run your bot or the transmitter, as those are the only batteries the rules allow you to impound. This is just September, most teams won't compete until January at the earliest, so you have plenty of notice about this.
2. As I (and others) have stated several times, it is possible to build a championship level sumo bot that does not need to have batteries replaced after every bout. In fact, I believe that all of the winners of the event at the New York State competition and the National competition did so without ever replacing their batteries. Having said that, it is possible to design a robot that meets the specs and has very good batteries that needs to have those batteries replaced once or more during the double-elimination tournament. THAT IS YOUR DESIGN CHOICE, AND YOU ARE MAKING THAT SPECIFIC CHOICE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THERE WILL BE NO RECHARGING FACILITIES AVAILABLE. If you choose to do so, then you will have to bring enough spare batteries to get you through the competition. As I stated before, at the Nationals, the maximum number of bouts anyone could participate in is 12, requiring you to have enough battery power to operate your bot for a maximum of 24 minutes. Just make sure your coach understands when you tell him/her how many spare batteries you need, that this cost is because you chose to design your bot so that it needs this many replacement batteries, and there are other designs that don't require this additional cost.
3. The object of this event is to push your opponent out of the ring. It is not to avoid being pushed out. There are stalling penalties for bots that simply try to run and hide and never engage their opponent. In addition, in the scenario that you describe, the bot that runs up to make contact then quickly backs away is violating the spirit of the competition (they aren't making any real effort to push their opponent out of the ring) and they would forfeit the bout (depending on the level, I would probably stop the bout and give one warning at the Regional level, and at the State and National level I would give that warning in the opening instructions at the start of each hour). Just keep in mind that the stalling penalty is applied if you haven't tried to make contact for 15 seconds. If your opponent is VERY slow and you simply rush to the center of the ring and then sit there waiting for them to make contact, you could be charged with a stalling penalty (if, in the judges opinion, the opponent was trying to get to you as best as their bot could and you were just sitting in the middle of the ring not doing anything).
Mr. Boyd, I looked at my sumobot rules today but I could not find any rules saying that we have to impound tools as someone mentioned before. My coach also told me that the vehicle events had never asked for the tools to be impounded before.
I also have another question about the ranking. If the 3rd place team at the National Tournament is placed in the same preliminary round with the top 2 teams, does that mean that the highest place this 3rd place team can actually get is 13th place?
OK, I have already mentioned my experiences with impound above, so let me make one final statement about this: I do not know what Regional Event Supervisors will do, nor do I know what State Event Supervisors will do (except in New York), but I can state for a fact that if you are competing in Sumo Bots at either of the New York State competitions or at the National Tournament, then you will be required to impound all of the materials you may need to compete in the event. Students should arrive to each of these three competitions empty handed.
As for your question about the top three teams competing in the same preliminary round together, and the third place team winding up with a 13th place at best, yes, that is what the result would be. However, keep in mind that the probability of the top three teams all signing up for the same preliminary hour is small out of the 60 teams that will be competing. You get to sign up for a time (you are not randomly placed in a slot based on team number, or anything else). If the 1st and 3rd best teams sign up for the same hour, or if the 2nd and 3rd best teams do so, then the 3rd best team should qualify for the Finals.
Ubermensch wrote:While re-reading the rules to Sumo Bots, I realized that there is actually a rule specifically against stalling tactics such as the one mentioned.
Yeah, I originally planned to make a really small really maneuverable bot to just run circles around my opponents.
.
