Our main kick is looking better- not that it could have looked any worse easily. With one front leg coming back and one going forward, in addition to really getting a legitimate push off the back legs, we have a good amount more power. The back kick works sometimes thanks to the help Murch and Jesse provided, but is not easy to say the least. It doesn’t help that the dog keeps on dying mid-kick for no apparent reason.

Tonight I worked on trying to get the trap and kick better. I looked at Player, and together with Jesse and Henry tried to figure out a better way for the little guys to a)kick the ball from a trap and b) confirm that they actually have trapped the ball. For part (a) I also watched video footage to get some ideas– some of those kicks are weird.

Tonight I got the values of the joint angles for the normal walk forward.  Now I have to figure out the best values for a trap (should be similiar to the trap I already have for the spin), and then readjust the values of the leg joints so the dog actually walks with the ball.  This should primarily consist of readjusting the front leg values, but the back legs probably have to go down a bit as well.

This morning I worked a bunch more on getting the little guys to spin with the ball trapped, ultimately setting up to shoot or get the ball up the field in the right direction. We currently have two solid spins with the ball; in one spin the front legs are a whole lot more active than in the other but both work. Both of them are fully written out and have been transferred to GoalStates.h, and both have matching opposite direction spins done as well (so the dog can go right or left with the ball). Now I have to do some experimentation between the two spins to see if one is significantly better than the other- that’s for next time.