View Full Version : MCC (Minimum competitive Concept 2015
Previous years are located here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131188&highlight=MCC).
Each year I am amazed by what teams come up with to compete in FRC. Teams have a ton of wonderful ideas and some even see good execution of those ideas.
I would like this thread to focus on the "Minimum Competitive Concept" for a robot for 2015. It is often easy to identify all the possible tasks you could have a robot do. Prioritizing those tasks, and realizing it in the form of a competitive robot is in my opinion much more impressive.
If you haven't watched the Simbotics Strategy Presentation (http://www.simbotics.org/resources/strategy/seminar), please do before responding to this thread. Especially review the "Golden Rules 1&2".
Assumptions are that one of the primary goals of the MCC is to play in elims (not necessarily win on Einstein), and your team has mid-pack to lower fabrication resources.
Please list your assumptions, strategy to seed high, estimate of a winning score, and what robot design elements would achieve this score.
I personally usually assume for this thread that the goal is to seed high enough to be either a Alliance Captain or a pretty early pick. I would appreciate this year if we kept towards that philosophy as opposed to getting into a KOP Robot/Cheesecaking discussion. Not that it isn't a viable concept, but I think it has been covered at length elsewhere.
AllenGregoryIV
28-05-2015, 12:27
I'm going to throw out our 8ish hour robot build as the MCC. For those of you that don't know, we completely tore down the robot to its two drive rails and built a new one at the Arkansas regional.
We made playoffs at all three of our events, including champs, as the third robot on the alliance.
Most everything could be made from Versaframe if you wanted, and a whole lot of #35 chain.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/b2a/b2a5e4b2a80df65b97229ff9bce51b5f_m.jpg
By champs we could do stacks with cans on top and if you just wanted stacks of totes we could do that all day.
It only weighed 100lbs so it was great for cheese caking which was pretty important for a lot of robots this year at events.
Kevin Leonard
28-05-2015, 12:41
A few robots come to mind this year as MCC's.
1711 was the third robot on the MSC championship Alliance, and the fourth robot on our Carson Championship Alliance. They could make stacks of 4, cap stacks of 4, and grab cans. Very simple robot as well.
558, as usual, came up with an effective and simple design utilizing mostly COTS materials. They were the third robot on the 1730 Alliance in Carson this year, and primarily advertised themselves as a capper of stacks of 5. They also had can grabbers.
263 won South Florida early on consistently making 1 stack/match, then attended two New York events, where they upped their game to 2.5 stacks/match. Their robot consistently of a short elevator with Indiana tabs on one side and a short elevator to grabs cans with on the other.
Lastly, the simple concept of the year, 1325. 1325 captained the #2 Alliance on Carson to an Einstein berth using a design simpler than almost any other effective design in the world. 3 stacks/match from the feeder with only two motorized subsystems on their robot.
EDIT: One more that I forgot was 4967. 4967 is from Michigan, and consists literally of just an elevator with a hook on it that they used to mine the landfill and grab RC's from the step during teleop.
They were a high seed at multiple events, including MICMP, where they captained the 11th seeded alliance to a semifinal berth.
GreyingJay
28-05-2015, 12:51
I think this year what it all boiled down to was consistency. If you built a robot that could do something (like stack totes) and do it every time, you did well. As a byproduct you were also very predictable, which made it easier to be an alliance pick.
Like Karthik said in his presentation, initially it looked like this game would be perfect for specializations - landfill stackers, feeder stackers, and cappers. However it seems that in the end, the robots that did the best were those that didn't rely on other alliance members for help. I think this is because in the end most robots were not super consistent. A stacking robot that relied on the performance of another capping robot to succeed (and vice versa) would drop in the rankings as soon as one or the other robot made a mistake, but an all-in-one robot that could hold its own ground, kept going. Some specialists did make it through. The ones that succeeded were those that consistently, time after time, did what they were designed to do.
Initially we designed our robot to be a fast landfill stacker. That did not work as well as we'd hoped (mostly because we ran out of build time). By the end of the season we had evolved into an all-in-one that could do coopertition and then make our own 4-tote capped stacks. 40-80 points per round. Nowhere near the best robots, but we were finally consistent.
Had we gone into our week 3 regional with what we had at worlds, we would have done much better. Of course any and every robot improved over time. Which again says to me that winning is about being consistent. Part of that is engineering away your mechanical failures and flakiness, and part of that is confidence and practice on the drive team.
Also, part of our day 1 strategy was to be good at coopertition. This is the one thing we did well every time (notwithstanding elevator/clip failures), because it was an easy 40 points. This was perhaps short sighted given that after qualifications were done we had little to offer to alliances.
3946's robot this year was of an MCC type. For most of our matches, we had 3 CIM motors and no other actuators, and all of the sensory feedback was through the driver. With this, we played in (regional) elims as part of the champion alliance. Our goal was to be selected by presenting some distinctive capabilities that would appeal to a high seeded alliance. The first non-obvious strategic decision was to play the landfill and step. This is why we did not have forks or a body that wraps around the totes - we went for a relatively flat front face that could get right next to a tote even if it were packed in the landfill or atop the step. We had a 4 wheel omni tank drive and a single lift stabilized by dual chains and a relatively flat face that could grab tots and RCs by the lips on the edge, or the RC handle. Our only really innovative solution (that worked) was our "rake" which features 20 10-32x3" steel machine screws which are spring-mounted in a piece of 1.25" c-channel to allow greater flexibility in grabbing game pieces. This rake proved to be as much of a liability as an asset, as we never did learn to make well-nested stacks consistently, limiting us to carrying two or at most three game pieces per trip. We were selected by the #2 alliance at Bayou because of our ability to mine the landfill, including flipping the totes next to the step, and then to remove RCs from the step for scoring. In the canburglar-poor environment of Bayou, it was good enough to be able to get an RC in 60 seconds.
We installed a variety of sensors throughout the build season, but between poor sensor mounts and a mostly-rookie programming team, we never did get any of the sensors working to line up the robot with the RCs and totes well enough to help our scoring ability.
At CMP, we figured that the top alliances would become starved not only of RCs, but of rightside up totes. Our ability to flip totes and to remove them from the step would have been valuable had this been the case, but no alliance was able to score all of the "easy" gray totes and need more.
Andrew Schreiber
28-05-2015, 13:49
Previous years are located here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131188&highlight=MCC).
Each year I am amazed by what teams come up with to compete in FRC. Teams have a ton of wonderful ideas and some even see good execution of those ideas.
I would like this thread to focus on the "Minimum Competitive Concept" for a robot for 2015. It is often easy to identify all the possible tasks you could have a robot do. Prioritizing those tasks, and realizing it in the form of a competitive robot is in my opinion much more impressive.
If you haven't watched the Simbotics Strategy Presentation (http://www.simbotics.org/resources/strategy/seminar), please do before responding to this thread. Especially review the "Golden Rules 1&2".
Assumptions are that one of the primary goals of the MCC is to play in elims (not necessarily win on Einstein), and your team has mid-pack to lower fabrication resources.
Please list your assumptions, strategy to seed high, estimate of a winning score, and what robot design elements would achieve this score.
I personally usually assume for this thread that the goal is to seed high enough to be either a Alliance Captain or a pretty early pick. I would appreciate this year if we kept towards that philosophy as opposed to getting into a KOP Robot/Cheesecaking discussion. Not that it isn't a viable concept, but I think it has been covered at length elsewhere.
Minimum competitive concept for 2015 - reliable can burglar. Note I didn't say fast, I said reliable. At most events (at least in NE) this would have been a first round pick due to not wanting to deal with playing at a disadvantage with cans.[1] Now, likely this would not have resulted in playing very deep into eliminations. But, if my math is right being picked twice in the first round and making QFs would likely get you to DCMP.
What would this involve? A flow controlled cylinder and some either fiberglass rod or pvc. Oh, and the KoP drivetrain. Which, even accounting for my constant pessimism about the abilities of teams, makes this the cheapest to implement MCC I've ever come up with[2]
[1] There's a discussion to be had as to whether this was a rational decision, I'd make the argument that most teams picking can burglars first round were being irrational as the majority of alliances at district or even NE DCMP were NOT constrained by cans. BUT the fact remains that these picks were consistently made through the first 5 weeks.
[2] I don't think I did one for 2010, which would have been cheaper as I would have said "a drivetrain that doesn't involve those AM lift kits and drive practice"
marshall
28-05-2015, 14:00
Minimum competitive concept for 2015 - reliable can burglar. Note I didn't say fast, I said reliable. At most events (at least in NE) this would have been a first round pick due to not wanting to deal with playing at a disadvantage with cans.
I know you added the qualifier about NE events but at both NC and Palmetto... those machines would have been lucky to have been picked at all. I suspect there were events elsewhere that were similar. That might have more than a little to do with the region mind you...
At any rate, I would agree that a reliable mechanism is always better than a purely fast mechanism. Combining the two is deadly.
AdamHeard
28-05-2015, 14:05
Minimum competitive concept for 2015 - reliable can burglar. Note I didn't say fast, I said reliable. At most events (at least in NE) this would have been a first round pick due to not wanting to deal with playing at a disadvantage with cans.[1] Now, likely this would not have resulted in playing very deep into eliminations. But, if my math is right being picked twice in the first round and making QFs would likely get you to DCMP.
What would this involve? A flow controlled cylinder and some either fiberglass rod or pvc. Oh, and the KoP drivetrain. Which, even accounting for my constant pessimism about the abilities of teams, makes this the cheapest to implement MCC I've ever come up with[2]
[1] There's a discussion to be had as to whether this was a rational decision, I'd make the argument that most teams picking can burglars first round were being irrational as the majority of alliances at district or even NE DCMP were NOT constrained by cans. BUT the fact remains that these picks were consistently made through the first 5 weeks.
[2] I don't think I did one for 2010, which would have been cheaper as I would have said "a drivetrain that doesn't involve those AM lift kits and drive practice"
The slight issue with this argument is at weak events, no one would pick canburglars.
In order to meet the "top 12" criteria o being either an alliance captain or a likely early pick, the goal even at CMP was essentially that you could put up two tall (5 or 6) capped stacks fairly consistently. There were a number of HP-feeding stackers that met this goal without being unduly complex. Many had tethered or internal ramps that passively caused the totes to automatically fall into the same location and orientation relative to the robot every time, simplifying the stacking process. Quite a few used the same lift mechanism designed for totes to also acquire and pre-stack RCs. Some were entirely modular (e.g. versaframe) and COTS (e.g. KoP, AM/vex gearboxes, COTS wheels) construction.
Another MCC concept that we considered and would have worked well but I do not recall seeing very often was the "RC specialist". This would have required a decent canburglar that could work both in auto or teleop, and the ability to cap tall stacks placed by your alliance partners. There were a number of teams which would have scored an additional tall stack of totes if they did not have to round up RCs, and the RC specialist would have been a fruitful addition to such an alliance.
3946's robot this year was of an MCC type. ...snip... Our goal was to be selected by presenting some distinctive capabilities that would appeal to a high seeded alliance. ...snip...
I understand why you might believe this to be the type of concept I am looking for, but to me it is not. I am looking for simple that can qualify high, or be an early pick. Hoping to be the 3rd member of a #1-2 alliance I have found puts you in a high probablility of not being picked at all which defeats my playing in Elims requirement.
This does not mean that picking this sort of strategy is a poor strategy for a team to do, just not the intent of this thread. The strategy your team executed can be a very good one for being part of the winning alliance or making it to worlds. It just also has a nearly equal probability of sitting out Saturday afternoon.
Andrew Schreiber
28-05-2015, 14:12
The slight issue with this argument is at weak events, no one would pick canburglars.
That's what I'd assume too. I'd claim NE is pretty weak and yet I consistently saw can burglars going really early at our events. Why? I have no idea. As I mentioned, I feel this was an irrational decision and I have no evidence more detailed than my anecdotal experience. Maybe it was a solely NE centric bout of insanity. Or it might have had something to do with depth of events. Not really sure.
The slight issue with this argument is at weak events, no one would pick canburglars.
Did you guys actually see reliable ones that did not get picked up? I am not disagreeing with that statement, but thinking back, I cannot think of any reliable ones that did not get picked up at Michigan districts. To be fair though, there was a ton less of these than I expected.
I think this year what it all boiled down to was consistency.
Absolutely. between the limited role of defense and with advancement based on "points" rather than "victories", consistency was king no matter what tasks you were doing.
Allison K
28-05-2015, 14:33
...
Another MCC concept that we considered and would have worked well but I do not recall seeing very often was the "RC specialist". This would have required a decent canburglar that could work both in auto or teleop, and the ability to cap tall stacks placed by your alliance partners. There were a number of teams which would have scored an additional tall stack of totes if they did not have to round up RCs, and the RC specialist would have been a fruitful addition to such an alliance.
We were the RC specialist. We got ourselves into a bit of a pickle and (with some guidance from outside sources) decided to go this route instead, after it became obvious in week 3 that our original strategy was not going to pan out within the time remaining.
We weren't the fastest burglar out there by any means, but we were fairly consistent with the auto mode (we could do left two or right two), we could turn sideways cans to vertical (upside down was easier than rightside up, but we could do either), cap stacks up to five, and prepare noodled cans for us or our all-in-one specialist partners. We could also manage one gold tote efficiently in the pincher claw. Our most common match strategy was burgle the right two cans, stay out of the way of the stackers, put a gold tote on the step, noodle the staging zone cans, upright the burgled cans and get them out of the way, cap whatever stacks had been made by the time we did all those other things. It was enough to get us in elims at both districts and states, including 5th alliance captain at first district and as 1st pick by the 3rd seed at our second district.
Ours was probably fancier than it needed to be, but I feel like the mechanisms we actually ended up with (a four bar arm, a pincher claw, and a winch spool to retract the can burglar) should be within reach of most teams.
I understand why you might believe this to be the type of concept I am looking for, but to me it is not. My apologies; I originally read the last paragraph of OP to mean something entirely different. "I personally usually assume" to me implies that this is not necessarily an assumption here.
Did you guys actually see reliable ones that did not get picked up? I am not disagreeing with that statement, but thinking back, I cannot think of any reliable ones that did not get picked up at Michigan districts. To be fair though, there was a ton less of these than I expected.
At the regional level, I saw very few (if any) robots who had reliable Canburglars, but didn't have other elimination worthy functions. Most teams that I saw who were picked for Canburgling, would have been picked otherwise for their stacking/capping abilities. As such it's hard to evaluate the claim.
Kevin Leonard
28-05-2015, 14:59
At the regional level, I saw very few (if any) robots who had reliable Canburglars, but didn't have other elimination worthy functions. Most teams that I saw who were picked for Canburgling, would have been picked otherwise for their stacking/capping abilities. As such it's hard to evaluate the claim.
New York Events had a few teams that were picked solely for their ability to grab cans from the step, whether that be autonomous or teleop. 4203, 174 come to mind. These were the last selections, however, at both events. All the alliances below #1 needed scoring robots for their third robot.
These robots also grabbed during teleop (which was fine for these events, no alliance was grabbing all four during autonomous, and only one or two alliances were capable of more than 4 fully capped stacks).
I also can't think of a robot at either event capable of grabbing containers from the step that was NOT selected.
The slight issue with this argument is at weak events, no one would pick canburglars.
Did you guys actually see reliable ones that did not get picked up? I am not disagreeing with that statement, but thinking back, I cannot think of any reliable ones that did not get picked up at Michigan districts. To be fair though, there was a ton less of these than I expected.
At the regional level, I saw very few (if any) robots who had reliable Canburglars, but didn't have other elimination worthy functions. Most teams that I saw who were picked for Canburgling, would have been picked otherwise for their stacking/capping abilities. As such it's hard to evaluate the claim.
I agree that a "pure" canburglar, with no scoring capability, would have been a long shot for both first and second picks at nearly any regional. Burgling a can without the ability to right it and deliver it exactly where the alliance needs would not meet MCC criteria. That said, even most of the unreliable burglars I saw picked or got picked - for scoring ability. Also, while the materials list for a canburglar is pretty simple, the tolerances for a mechanism that reaches across three rows of totes to retrieve, release, and (preferably) orient an RC are trickier than for a passable forklift, boat lift, or even side lift. That is, anyone who can build a can burglar is going to be able to put something else useful on the robot.
cadandcookies
28-05-2015, 15:17
I'd say a MCC at most regionals is a kit drive train, a simple lift (using REV extrusion, 80/20, or VersaFrame), and then lots of human player and drive practice.
Gets you 40 coop points (round it to 32 on average, say you missed a couple), and somewhere from 30-40+ noodle points (with proper strategy/good partners), and if you're well practiced a few small stacks for 20 points or so.
That would rank you reasonably well at pretty much any regional outside the extremely competitive ones, and pretty much guarantee playing on Saturday afternoon in some capacity.
MrForbes
28-05-2015, 15:29
1726 made a robot that was able to achieve the goals you stated for a MCC robot. We knew that cans were where the points are, and decided to make a robot that could deal with cans effectively, and also deal with totes less effectively. We figured most other teams would be making stackers that would work at the chute door (yes, chute door) so we decided to make our be able to get totes from the landfill for small stacks, and be able to cap other teams' taller stacks. It worked pretty well, we were in eliminations in our regionals, although we ended being the highest ranked unpicked team in our division at Champs.
The big claw works well for grabbing cans, and can upright them with some practice. It can also grab a tote if needed. The small lower arm will lift a tote onto another, and can make a stack of two relatively easily, but a stack of 3 or 4 is pretty sketchy to move around without falling over.
http://selectric.org/nerds/2015robot8.jpg
Bonus points for the relatively low level of fabrication skills and materials needed? The judges at Alamo thought so. And it makes the game interesting to play, every match is different if you're the capping robot
Monochron
28-05-2015, 15:29
Did you guys actually see reliable ones that did not get picked up? I am not disagreeing with that statement, but thinking back, I cannot think of any reliable ones that did not get picked up at Michigan districts. To be fair though, there was a ton less of these than I expected.
I would guess that Michigan districts are particularly competitive. Adam may have been referring to earlier competitions or less competitive ones.
I would guess that Michigan districts are particularly competitive. Adam may have been referring to earlier competitions or less competitive ones.
Actually most Michigan district events were not particularly competitive due to an influx of new teams. Most district events were about 25-30% new or 2nd year teams, and some were as high as 50% young teams (which typically are still learning how to make an effective robot). Of the 18 district events, some were pretty effective.
Now I will state that at several events can burglars brought cans over that did not end up being utilized.
Kevin Leonard
28-05-2015, 15:54
Actually most Michigan district events were not particularly competitive due to an influx of new teams. Most district events were about 25-30% new or 2nd year teams, and some were as high as 50% young teams (which typically are still learning how to make an effective robot). Of the 18 district events, some were pretty effective.
Now I will state that at several events can burglars brought cans over that did not end up being utilized.
I would guess that Michigan districts are particularly competitive. Adam may have been referring to earlier competitions or less competitive ones.
Cans from the middle were completely unnecessary at events where the two best robots together could only make 3 stacks.
There were both regionals and districts where this was the case. This might seem crazy now, but in Week 1, if your robot could consistently make one stack, you were very good. Many people don't remember that because 148, 987, and 624 competed week 1, but Dallas wasn't the only event that week.
tr6scott
28-05-2015, 16:43
I think TORC is MCC... :)
(At least on good years)
Simple elevator, tested multiple arms, from rigid flippy dogs, but stuck with articulated air, just as it seemed to have more conisistant picks. Easier to get out of trouble too when a miss-load occurred.
Omni H drive, but needed to articulate side wheel for crossing scoring platform, which required a little more design and fab, than a MCC.
Simple reliable tape measure can burglar, that never missed, grabbed one can, and getting 4 cans up on an alliance = blue banner just about anywhere.
https://youtu.be/710_8mUA-0g
We had capability of 6 high stacks, but in the first event, 5 high was fine.
Seven different automodes but almost never used them, as 2 totes, or 2 cans or 1 bot to the auto zone was still worth the same thing, nothing. . .
Built with a week to spare, host week 0 event, and drive, drive, drive. . .
But the game all came down to consistency, and that is KISS and TORC.
AdamHeard
28-05-2015, 16:46
Thinking on it more, I think most teams that would have been able to reliably grab two would have been picked at most events (even if it didn't make the most sense for that alliance).
BrennanB
28-05-2015, 16:52
At the regional level, I saw very few (if any) robots who had reliable Canburglars, but didn't have other elimination worthy functions. Most teams that I saw who were picked for Canburgling, would have been picked otherwise for their stacking/capping abilities. As such it's hard to evaluate the claim.
Of all the events that I followed closely, I think 1305 and 4976 are the only one to really fit the high pick number for a robot that only did cans. Third overall picks at North Bay and Windsor.
Cangrabers for a first pick are very niche like. High seeds don't want them because they can cap their own stacks, even low seeds it's a bit scary as a capper doesn't do too well with no totes to score, but you don't want to solo totes either.
We (4476) also were a "virtually" can only robot, but were selected much lower (due to less reliability seen with our team as a whole) as 6th overall pick and 7th alliance captain respectively. I feel like this would be more typical of alliances looking to go deep.
2848 was a can only robot as well and think they ended in similar positions, lower seed quarterfinalists. They were reasonably reliable at getting 1+ out of the 4.
So not sure a reliable can grab is enough.
I'll throw out team 4050, our third robot on our Chesapeake regional winning alliance as a minimum competitive robot, they were able to make a very simple landfill loader that lifted the edges of the totes, They were able to pretty reliably put up a stacks of five and a stack of four or five due to their drivers being particularly good at using the mechanism.
We somehow were able to pick them as the 24th robot selected as they were more consistent than some pure stackers picked before them.
And for most of elims at Chesapeake, they were working blind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtmTq_SiGnk, our finals matches
GKrotkov
28-05-2015, 17:54
I understand why you might believe this to be the type of concept I am looking for, but to me it is not. I am looking for simple that can qualify high, or be an early pick.
Would you consider specializing to make sure you get into eliminations by being the first pick of the second round (rather than dead last) fulfilling the "play in eliminations" requirement? Or do you really need to be gone by the end of the first go-through?
For example, in last year's thread, the general consensus pointed toward an inbounder/assist bot, which, in many cases, would not be picked in the first round.
I can think of a robot class that would qualify. Team 4 is one example; Livewire is another (sorry, forgot the number). There are others.
Drivebase as a fairly standard tank drive. Pickup is a series of hooks for the totes mounted to a chain or belt going up a tower. Maybe a specialized hook for a can goes on the top. If working the chute, a ramp-on-tether gets added.
And of the 3 of that type I can think of off the top of my head, I can remember 2 making elims and I'm not sure about the third.
Pickup is a series of hooks for the totes mounted to a chain or belt going up a tower.
1519 is an example of this, though they had a can claw and can grabbing arms. They were the first seed and winners of all three district events they went to as well as the NE district championship and had an incredibly consistent 3 tote auto.
Of highly competitive simple robots, only 1325 comes to mind.
Entire robot was literally 'elevator goes up, elevator goes down, drive.' Passive 2 stack ramp and passive elevator clamps lead to 3 consistent capped and noodled stacks a match.
1519 is an example of this, though they had a can claw and can grabbing arms. They were the first seed and winners of all three district events they went to as well as the NE district championship and had an incredibly consistent 3 tote auto.
1519 was incredible, but they're not even close to an MCC.
1519 was incredible, but they're not even close to an MCC.
True. They are an example of the concept I was reffering to though, just extremely well executed and thought out.
D.Allred
28-05-2015, 21:41
Assumptions are that one of the primary goals of the MCC is to play in elims (not necessarily win on Einstein), and your team has mid-pack to lower fabrication resources.
Please list your assumptions, strategy to seed high, estimate of a winning score, and what robot design elements would achieve this score.
I personally usually assume for this thread that the goal is to seed high enough to be either a Alliance Captain or a pretty early pick. I would appreciate this year if we kept towards that philosophy as opposed to getting into a KOP Robot/Cheesecaking discussion. Not that it isn't a viable concept, but I think it has been covered at length elsewhere.
Issac,
I always enjoy this thread. Our team uses the MCC approach during our strategy sessions as a baseline performance indicator to beat. However, it looks like you bumped it up a notch to increase the goal to possible alliance captain. That's our goal, but I usually assume the MCC is a sure elimination pick.
Looking at our notes just after kick-off, we assumed the following MCC features.
- Elevator robot that can handle both totes and containers
- Prefers to play at HP station
- Must be able to co-op in any combination which essentially means you can put one tote on an existing stack of 3
- Must be able to cap at least a stack of 4 totes (made by you or your alliance)
- Scoring goal: 2 four stacks with container and litter (60 points) or co-op plus one stack (70 points)
As it turned out, that version of an MCC could have been an alliance captain at some competitions. Plus, I thought this robot was fairly difficult as a minimum.
David
Assumptions:
For an MCC, seeding high isn't a concern.
Coop isn't going to get you picked for eliminations.
Looking at the regional events we attended (Greater Kansas City, Oklahoma), to be in the top 24, your robot needs to average more than 18 points per match. So that's 9 totes or more on the scoring platform, or a stack of 3 with a can on it.
Woolly's MCC#1: In Memory of Dozer
Goal: Average 9+ totes.
This design relies primarily on a competent driver, and a decent drive-train, and not much else. The chassis has a wedge on the front to be able to break up the landfill so that the totes can be pushed onto the scoring platform easily.
Drivetrain: AM14U2 Tank drive, 2 CIM
Positives: Simple, easy to improve, works well with other landfill bots as breaking up the landfill usually improves their output, easy to improve.
Negatives: Relies heavily on the driver, Makes a mess on the field potentially slowing alliance partners trying to pick up cans or do Co-op, takes up a lot of space on the scoring platform.
Potential Improvements: replace wedge with roller intake (may even be able to be based on 2014 designs), can-burglars.
Woolly's MCC#2: Diddy Kong
Goal: Average 1 stack of 4 with a bin on top
Imagine 4522's robot. Now remove the seat belt. Replace the H-drive with an AM14U2. Remove the can burglars. Give the drivers less practice time due to the MCC building team having less resources to be able to get it done in decent time. Also make the controls a lot more convoluted for similar reasons.
Something similar could be accomplished with having the ramp not built into the robot, and that would make it more advantageous to add a powered intake at a later date.
Drivetrain: AM14U2 Tank drive, 2 CIM
Postives: Better learning experience than MCC#1, relatively easy to make into a regional winning robot, shouldn't disturb alliance partners.
Negatives: Still pretty complex, requires good communication between driver 1 and 2, requires much better programmers than MCC#1, may be less consistent due to complexity and cans rolling off the stack.
Potential Improvements: See 4522's robot. Also, powered intake.
.. to be in the top 24, your robot needs to average more than 18 points per match.
Top 24 doesn't meet the MCC description. Top 12 would be closer to the target. There's no way a herding robot can reach this level.
Top 24 doesn't meet the MCC description. Top 12 would be closer to the target. There's no way a herding robot can reach this level.
Being the "24th best robot" is often a high probability of being one of the best teams watching Saturday afternoon.
My observations are that what I would consider top 24 often contain about 20 or so teams that actually end up playing in playoffs/elims. this could be inaccuracy of scouting or differing objectives or... Most years, top 16 or so are a pretty good lock for playing (this isn't necessarily the top 16 ranked teams). 2012 was a odd year where a lot of really good "long bots" sat out Saturday afternoon due to the high bonus and desire for a short wheelbase 3rd that year.
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So,my thought would be MCCs for this year. the first was a pretty simple robot that could make stacks of 2 from landfill or HP station (when I assumed the totes would land flat). This bot would start the season making around 3 stacks of 2, and eventually get to maybe as many as 5 or 6 stacks of 2 with some practice. I saw a few of these robots in Michigan this year, and several of them did well at the district level either being a low level captain or late first round/early 2nd round pick. 5517 (http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/5517) is a super clean example of this. The robot looks fantastic, but is essentially a 4-bar arm that is powered by pneumatics with a slide through tote loader. They ranked relatively high at both district events, and were low level captains at both events. Pretty good for rookie team.
Why I am a fan of 4-bar arm over Elevators/lifts for MCC: I saw a ton of well intended, but ultimately flawed elevator executions this year. Any sort of sliding mechanical element that has to resist a cantilevered force tends to have racking, friction, or flex issues. The 4-Bar has less trouble and is often easier to manufacture.
There were some really good elevator kits utilized this year, which I personally think falls within the easy to manufacture (purchase orders are pretty easy to make), but to fab an elevator from raw material is a bit tricky.
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