Winning Alliance Makeup

[AstroClark]

In your opinion, what will the winning alliances look like?


Will they have a dedicated support bot feeding balls to highly accurate shooters so just pound the high goals? Will they defeat the outer works extremely fast and decimate their defences? Or will they do everything? We wanna hear what you have to say about what the winning alliances will look like!


Clark Buchenroth
Team 3374 Robobroncs
Jackson Wyoming

[JohnFogarty]

If we are talking early season like week 0.5 in my case. I want at least one or two robots that can get 17-20 points in autonomous.

I want to be able to have 4 defenses breached to clear the outer works in the first 30 seconds of Teleop. From there a good drivetrain robot to contribute in playing defense and blocking shots.

The other two bots would be a combination or the best available of a quick floor ball clearer and feeder station cycler.

I want at minimum all 3 bots to be able to fit and challenge the tower.

[Anthony Galea]

Week 1 + 3 district here:

I expect the winning alliance at week 1 districts (smaller pool of teams to choose from) to be a shooter, a fast low bar feeder, and a dedicated breacher that once the opposing defenses are breached, goes and plays defense. These robots will Capture the end of the match.

Week 3 districts will have a two cyclers, one low bar, and one for the other defenses, and one defender that helps breach with only the Sally Door/Drawbridge. Just like week 1, these robots will capture and get breach points.



Bonus:
As the season goes on, I expect that from week 5 onward, winning alliances will be very diverse, moreso than every other game. I expect the final four alliances on Einstein will all have very different makeups.

[Jcarbon]

During our beginning of season strategy discussions, we tried to figure out how high different alliance makeups would score. What we predicted to be the best was two high shooting robots who can also cross some defenses, and one robot specializing in breaching. Two robots would quickly breach at the beginning of the match, while the other would shoot. After that, the shooters would be fed balls by the breacher and they would shoot.

This being said, at our districts, it seems pretty unlikely that many alliances will end up with two good shooters. I'll be curious to see how alliance utilize the later pick, less capable robots.

[Doug Frisk]

I predict the winning alliance will have pretty much exactly 12 high school aged students and 3 robots.

That's my prediction and I'm sticking with it.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

At some regionals simply capturing and breaching will give the best alliance the win. For more competitive events though, there will be more than one alliance that can breach and capture. This leads me to thinking that the winning alliance will be the one who can get as many points as they can on top of that. Most of the time, that will be high goal shooting but in some cases, a team of scaling robots will be able to upset.

I predict the winning alliance will have pretty much exactly 12 high school aged students and 3 robots.

That's my prediction and I'm sticking with it.
I predict 9-12 high school aged and under students and 3 robots.

[EricH]

I predict the winning alliance will have pretty much exactly 12 high school aged students and 3 robots.

That's my prediction and I'm sticking with it.
I predict 9 high school aged students, 3 robots, and 3 persons of undetermined age.

At championships, it's 12 high school aged students, 4 robots, and 4 persons of undetermined age.


Helps if you remember that the coach doesn't have to be a student.

[Anupam Goli]

If we are talking early season like week 0.5 in my case. I want at least one or two robots that can get 17-20 points in autonomous.

I want to be able to have 4 defenses breached to clear the outer works in the first 30 seconds of Teleop. From there a good drivetrain robot to contribute in playing defense and blocking shots.

The other two bots would be a combination or the best available of a quick floor ball clearer and feeder station cycler.

I want at minimum all 3 bots to be able to fit and challenge the tower.

I don't think you'll see a match like that until late in the season. Breaching 4 defenses is not going to happen in the first 30 seconds unless your alliance is extremely coordinated and been playing the game for weeks.

[pandamonium]

I really think that as the game evolves that we will see teams cheese caking climbers. If an alliance has two 2 ball auto's and crosses 3 defenses in auto and 3 climbers they create something like a 50 - 60 point hole that the other alliances will have to out score them by.

[Caleb Sykes]

At the very least, the winning alliance will be the one that breaches the defenses and captures the tower in every match. They will likely do more, but breaching and capturing is a minimum. It would be very difficult to compete as an alliance in elims if you can't consistently do these things.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

I expect the winning alliance at week 1 districts (smaller pool of teams to choose from) to be a shooter, a fast low bar feeder, and a dedicated breacher that once the opposing defenses are breached, goes and plays defense. These robots will Capture the end of the match.

Week 3 districts will have a two cyclers, one low bar, and one for the other defenses, and one defender that helps breach with only the Sally Door/Drawbridge. Just like week 1, these robots will capture and get breach points...

How long do you expect it to take to breach defenses??? If 2/3 robots cross a defense in auto (very likely for a winning alliance), that only leaves 6 defenses to cross for a breach, just 3/robot if robot #3 is dedicated solely to defense. That's only a breach every 40 seconds. VERY doable.

My guess is robot 3 only sees the offensive side of the field during the first and last 30 seconds of a match.


I really think that as the game evolves that we will see teams cheese caking climbers. If an alliance has two 2 ball auto's and crosses 3 defenses in auto and 3 climbers they create something like a 50 - 60 point hole that the other alliances will have to out score them by.

Cheesecake climbers??? Are you joking!?!? Have you seen the level of complexity for cheesecake of past seasons? It's all very simply mechanisms. Climbing is the hardest aspect of this game. You can't just cheesecake that.

Also you're assuming the other alliances can't score 40+ pts in auto.


I found some winning alliance make up online with a quick google!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CR98oRXUAAAAHPY.jpg
:] :] :]

Glorious.

[TylerS]

How long do you expect it to take to breach defenses??? If 2/3 robots cross a defense in auto (very likely for a winning alliance), that only leaves 6 defenses to cross for a breach, just 3/robot if robot #3 is dedicated solely to defense. That's only a breach every 40 seconds. VERY doable.

My guess is robot 3 only sees the offensive side of the field during the first and last 30 seconds of a match.




Cheesecake climbers??? Are you joking!?!? Have you seen the level of complexity for cheesecake of past seasons? It's all very simply mechanisms. Climbing is the hardest aspect of this game. You can't just cheesecake that.

Also you're assuming the other alliances can't score 40+ pts in auto.




Glorious.

There will certainly be cheesecaked climbers. Maybe not to the extent of ramps last year but once champs came around we were seeing some crazy cheesecakes. I can tell you teams are already working on designs.

[Chris is me]

You guys are way off, particularly in how much will be scored in autonomous.

2014 and 2013 have spoiled teams into thinking shooting in auton is easy. In both games you had an absurdly wide goal allowing a lot of variation in where you were aiming from as long as you were roughly the same distance from the goal. In this game, you have to cross an obstacle, which most of the time consists of terrain your robot will have to climb, jump, or bounce over. This will lead to many messed up gyro calibrations, indeterminate encoder travel distances, and just a general loss of information and accuracy. The low bar may be the only exception to this.

From there, robots have to aim into a goal barely wider than the game piece they are trying to score, and make a shot. Most events will have less than 5 teams able to do this. And people seriously think two ball autons will be common? Where you have to cross over those obstacles again, grab a second ball without crossing the middle line (a lot harder to do if you've slipped your wheels on an obstacle and aren't sure exactly where your robot is), cross one more time, and shoot? If anyone is going to pull off a two ball, maybe 987 or 254 will sometimes do it, but certainly not you. It's not like 2012 where a multiple ball autonomous is possible enough that you should design your robot around being able to do it (rear intake).

I expect for the first several weeks of competition, the average "good" elims alliance will score 16 - 26 points in auton altogether. One or two teams will cross their obstacle in auton, all 3 will get the 2 point driving forward bonus, no one will score. Expecting the average robot to score 17+ points themselves regularly is just nuts. When has autonomous path planning ever been a thing within the reach of most teams?

Cheesecaked climbers might happen once or twice, but not regularly. Climbing is just too hard. Mechanisms that lift the entire robot off the ground are not something that can be hastily added to other robots at competition - they need strong and rigid mounting, well coded controls, and probably some driver practice to use. You can't lift and contort entire robots with stuff you just slapped on top of them.

My bold prediction: Not enough teams at early regionals will focus on aiming for 4 ranking points a match, every match, and thus you'll see teams that neglect the high goal seeding 1-4 at lots of early events just because they have built their whole strategy around getting the 2 bonus ranking points.

[Sunshine]

3 robots cross a defense with a ball during auto. 2 score high goal in auto. They all return to neutral zone at start of tele and get a boulder. They all weaken 3 defenses. That's 3 gone (damaged) in the first 30 seconds of tele. Two of the bots score at tower. One bot finishes off defenses on second pass while other two bots concentrate on tower the rest of the match. Third bot either plays defense, scores at tower or delivers balls to the good scorers. Both tower and defenses are crippled. All three challenge the tower at end of match with two scaling. Do the math, how many points is that?

You asked what a winning alliance will do. This will be a common occurrence by week 3.

My gyro will keep the bot relatively straight while crossing the defense. The tower tracker will let bot and driver know when they are at correct distance and angle to shoot. Bam! Another high goal for the good guys. Play defense on me? My bumpers are crossing the outer works as I line up to shoot. Better not touch me.

[Sperkowsky]

Our competition schedule this year is a week 0(Suffield Shakedown) and a week 2(NYC).

At the week 0 we expect to see some potentially good robots failing at doing the harder tasks like high goal shots and climbing. A winning alliance would be 1 high goal shooter.
1 low goal breacher + low bar.
1 breacher + low bar + Sallydoor/drawbridge.

Week 2(NYC) will have a very different makeup. NYC is a very unpredictable regional especially this year with the amount of rookies. Out of the 60 teams I suspect only 20 will be able to consistently hit a high goal shot and only 10 or so will be able to climb. There will be a ton of breachers, low goal shooters, and defenders. A winning alliance though is going to be.
1 high goal shooter + high goal auton + climb + low bar (Alliance Captain)
1 high goal shooter + breach auton
1 Breacher + low bar + Sallydoor/drawbridge

By CMP I feel like all of the robots will be able to hit high goal shots but many are not going to.

Again these are just empty predictions we will see how it plays out. And I will find out the first one in less then a month :eek:

[Doug Frisk]

There will certainly be cheesecaked climbers. Maybe not to the extent of ramps last year but once champs came around we were seeing some crazy cheesecakes. I can tell you teams are already working on designs.

Because the climbing device must keep the robot fairly level it will require a substantial amount of engineering specific to the robot it's being installed on, that's going to make it difficult to make cheesecake using only COTS or a 30 pound withholding allowance.

Is getting an extra 10 points/match for an alliance partner in the playoffs worth your 30 pounds?

[Alpha Beta]

At the early regional level...
1. Captain robot crosses the defense in auto and takes a shot which hits 25% of the time and crosses back into the neutral zone to be ready to acquire a 2nd ball. During Teleop they cross the defenses 4 more times, scoring a boulder each time in the high goal from the batter. Their crossings include the class A defenses. They scale in the last 10 seconds. (If auto shot misses they make a 10 + 40 + 15 pt contribution for 65 pts with 5 crosses and 4 boulders in). Side Note: This guy was the top captain because the auto shot hit 3 out of 10 times in quals and gave them the top tie breaker on the 2nd sort criteria.

2. 1st Pick is a low bar, low goal, well driven speed demon. (High captains often value spectacular consistency over high risk / high reward picks and then pray the high risk teams knock themselves out with mistakes before they have to face them.) This team crosses in auto, but does not take the shot untill teleop. In teleop they score their boulder in the low goal and cross defenses 4 more times, scoring a low goal each time. They probably scale, but not consistently. They at least challenge. (If no scale, then 10 + 25 + 5 pts for a 40 pt contribution with 5 crosses (including 1 redudant non-scoring cross) and 5 boulders in.)

3. 2nd Pick can cross at least 1 class of defense reliably. No reason why they couldn't do it in auto, especially if their alliance partners help them write the routine over lunch. Reality is the auto probably doesn't happen. They cross and score that ball in a low goal at the start of tele and then hold the class C defense open so they other two can get a quick damage. (A mechanism to hold the gate open while staying out of the way of the other robots is one of this year's chesscake opportunities.) They spend the rest of the match guarding the secret passage and disrupting the other offense. They do take a 2nd boulder with them to score in the low goal in the last 20 seconds and challenge the tower to complete the capture. (If no auto, then 0 + 9 + 5 pts for a 14 pt contribution, plus points denied the other team and 2 crosses (1 of which is redundant and non-scoring) with 2 boulders in.)

Overall winning alliance score = 119 + 20 for breach + 25 for capture = 164 pts. With 11 boulders total there is some insurance against a tech-foul as well.

I predict the winning alliance will have pretty much exactly 12 high school aged students and 3 robots.

That's my prediction and I'm sticking with it.

I took this to mean student coaches would out perform mentor coaches, and the winning alliance would not need to utilize a back-up bot.

[RoboAlum]

We're going to Arizona North week 2 and I think the winning alliance will be made up of
Captain: High goal shooter who is capable of crossing in auto and makes shot 75% of time. able to quickly cycle or be fed from support bot. Challenges but has the ability to climb but climb is spotty at best
1st pick: breaches def in auto low and high goal shooter during teleop fast enough to not have to rely on support bot takes out B def group when doing cycles and has a climber.
2nd pick: kitbot with pneumatic tires has the ability to cross in auto but only on specific defense. during teleop carries balls to captain while being able to do the defenses who need a manipulator to cross. can challenge.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

My gyro will keep the bot relatively straight while crossing the defense.

Sure it will.
Will it? Maybe. Would hold my breath.

My bumpers are crossing the outer works as I line up to shoot. Better not touch me.

Better be 4'6" tall at the shooter or I don't need to touch you to be an effective wall.

[Chris is me]

Better be 4'6" tall at the shooter or I don't need to touch you to be an effective wall.

It's quite possible to build a low shooter which releases the ball in such a way that it is more than 5' off the ground by the time the ball leaves the footprint of the robot. Even so, this robot blocking strategy puts the blocker at great risk, as all the shooting robot has to do is drive forward while still touching the outer works. The blocker then risks foul points.