FREIGHT FRENZY IS HERE!!! Ready for the New Season?

This week, FIRST released the 2021-2022 season game: Freight Frenzy. And wow, it's going to be an awesome year. If you haven't already, we recommend that you watch this season's game animation. It explains most of the game rules for this season. More information about the rules can be found in the Freight Frenzy game manuals at the links below.

Game Manual #1: https://www.firstinspires.org/sites/default/files/uploads/resource_library/ftc/game-manual-part-1-traditional-events.pdf

Game Manual #2:

https://firstinspiresst01.blob.core.windows.net/first-forward-ftc/game-manual-part-2-traditional.pdf

We've been thinking over the game ever since kickoff on Saturday, and it's going to be so fun. We aren't going to reveal all of our strategies, because a lot of them are still stipulations and ideas. We expect our strategy to change as we build and test and compete with our robot, so nothing we say about our goals and what we are going to make our robot do is what will actually happen.

Our main strategy during autonomous is to split up the tasks between our alliance partners. We will program our robot to be able to play both roles in our game strategy so that we are more flexible for our alliance partner's strategy and program. We intend on splitting up the tasks as such:

The team with the robot starting closest to the carousel will move it's preloaded block in the shipping hub by detecting their team scoring element on the barcode. The team will then deliver ducks from the carousel, and end the autonomous period parked in the storage unit.

The team with the robot starting on the other end of the field, closest to the warehouse, will also deliver it's preloaded freight to the shipping hub by detecting their team scoring element on the barcode. They will then park their robot in the warehouse on our alliance's side of the field.

These tasks might seem a little bit random, but we specifically want to keep our strategy during autonomous divided up by tasks in certain locations of the field. The main problem that most teams encounter during autonomous is running into other robots and confusing the sensors. This usually messes up the rest of the program and prevents from scoring a bunch of points for both parties involved. This year's field is designed in a way that keep the alliances relatively separated during the autonomous period, so we are going to have to work hard to avoid our alliance partner in particular. Our strategy is the best way we figured out how to do this based solely on the analysis of the game.

Our strategy for Tele-op or the "driver-controlled" period is a little bit simpler. We plan on focusing on scoring as many of the freight items as possible into the shipping hub and shared shipping hub. Our strategy for which hub to score on will likely change based on the game situation. If our opposing alliance is working hard to tip the shared shipping hub to their side, we may focus on tipping the shipping hub to our alliance's side. If our opposing alliance isn't concerned with the shared shipping hub, we will work on balancing our alliance shipping hub.

Our endgame strategy is a little confusing too, and just like autonomous, we've split up the jobs into two categories, and we can work with our alliance partner so they are doing the tasks they are most comfortable with. We split up our tasks like this:

One team will work on tipping the shared shipping hub to our alliance's side by moving freight from the warehouse to the shipping hub. They could also work on balancing our alliance shipping hub if the shared shipping hub is already tipped. They will then end the match by parking in the warehouse.

The other team will focus on delivering ducks from the carousel. It is very unlikely that we will have delivered all of the ducks from our loading dock during the autonomous period, so this team can continue to deliver ducks and earn points during endgame. If there is room in the warehouse (this will mostly depend on how much freight is removed during the Tele-op periods) they can also park either partially or fully in the warehouse.

Capping the shipping hub is going to be a strategy that will depend greatly on our alliance partner and likely change from game to game. If we are able to, each team will cap the shipping hub one on top of the other. This probably won't happen because of the shape and dimensional compatibility of our two team scoring elements. If we can't do that, we intend on having the team that is delivering ducks from the carousel to cap the shipping hub. That way we still earn some points.

There is a HUGE disclaimer with our strategy, though. First, we haven't build our robot yet, so we may change up our strategy based on what we are able to make our robot do. Secondly, we have no idea what a game will look like and what our alliance partners will be most comfortable with doing. Our strategy is likely to change throughout the season, and it will almost definitely change from match to match as we get new alliance partners with new strategies. Even though our strategy is guaranteed to change, it is essential for our team to be able to set down a plan and a goal for what the robot should be able to do.

We have our strategy down and a little bit of brainstorming for the actual robot is still in effect, but in the meantime, we took apart last year's robot (Sprocket). Here are the best memories we have of him. RIP Sprocket; you were the greatest friend of the 2020-2021 Batteries Not Included team. We will always remember how faithful you were in leading us to state competitions in our rookie year.

Sprocket competes in Central Texas regional competitions.

Sprocket gets emergency repairs at Texas UIL State competition.

Sprocket is the MVP at practice before League Tournament.

Sprocket in the making

Sprocket's most updated and final version

Sprocket's highest honor: Collins Aerospace Innovate Award

Despite sprocket leaving us, we are ultimately happy to be moving forward this season and excited to build a new robot that will preform just as well as sprocket. Our designs are currently in the making, and we hope to share them with you in the near future. We can't wait to get started and share the adventures, obstacles, and fun we will have this season. Remember to be on the lookout for blog posts every weekend and posts on Instagram (@batteriesnotincludedftc). Good luck this season to all the FTC teams out there. We hope we'll encounter you in our competition (as alliance partners or opponents!). Thank you to FIRST and all the volunteers who are making this season possible. We couldn't have done it without you!