Hi everyone, I’m Raimondo form Italy, Team MegaHertz mentor, and Italian RR 'til 2021.
I have some point to suggest and I’ll start from Soccer Lightweight
Soccer Lightweight
This sub-league is supposed to be the entry league in the international competitions, but if we observe the international (and also national in my experience) tournament the level is quite higher than open league. I think this is due to the fact that rules in this category was substantially stable for many years. In open league, from 2016 two important rules changes was happened, and thank to this, new teams are allowed to compete with same possiblity than others. In Lightweigt is more difficult to start. In my mentor experience, in the past first with the new students I started in the Lightweight category and then they continued in the Open category. Now I start directly in the Open category, it’s easier and less frustrating because the level allows new teams to play.
Concluding I think that rule changes in the Open sub league worked well, and made international and national tournament more playable (especially for new teams), so I propose to make important rule changes in the Lightweight as well:
- reduce size to 20cm diameter
- move to “old” orange passive ball
- introduce power or torque limitation
I explain my proposal:
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reducing robot size (like Open league) corresponds to having a proportionally larger field. This should increase use of strategy in game.
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the pulsed ball is too big for a 20cm robot, so I propose to use 7cm orange passive ball. Furthermore, this make easier the first project, in fact there’s many embedded vision system, but very less pulsed ball detectors, so that in Lightweigt teams have to design their own.
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in the past rules, we can find “rules aimed to favor skills over brute force in the games” I think we have to follow this direction, and introduce power or torque limitation in this sub-league (for the moment) is the only way to avoid that the game became a money game and not a strategy game. In this moment, use powerful (and expensive) motors ensure performance. But if we want to favor game strategy is the only way, cause field is too small. Power supply limitation is not enough, cause is always possible to get powerful motors if you can spend enough.