Team 930's bump strafe

[Brewerboy82]

Hey everyone,
Here's Team 930's progress going over the bump, as well as strafing on top of it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/team930/4337075997/

Good luck!

[RoyerAJ]

WOW! that is really impressive. It will be interesting to see exactly what kind of role trans-bump movement will play in actually winning matches. If it ends up being important then your team should do great!

However, the way my team is currently thinking, crossing the bumps or going under the tunnels won't be that important and isn't worth the effort associated with doing so.

[Ken Leung]

Very nice. I see you guys discovered the self alignment feature 4 wheel drives has when going over the bump as well.

Nicely done!

[Mark Holschuh]

Great job BEARS! If you don't mind me asking, how much ground clearance do you have in the center of your robot? Thanks

[John G]

Job well done.

[GBilletdeaux930]

To answer your question Mark, we are 5.5-inches off the ground at the center.

Yea we found the self-alignment a very key addition to our mobility when coupled with the mecanums. The only thing we haven't been able to do is strafe over the bump. Any ideas?

Oh, as well as going over the bump, this is short enough to go through the tunnel too right now with about 2-inches of clearance. But that clearance will change as we finish the robot. Obviously, their is much to add still but I won't spill the details.

[O'Sancheski]

that is really cool.

[Trying to Help]

Thanks for posting that! It's always fun to see the great work that students are doing in this program.

Trying to Help

[gorrilla]

thats cool!

but whats the point?

[GBilletdeaux930]

What do you mean what's the point? Mobility is key every year and when you can be mobile anywhere on the field where other people can't, you have an advantage over them.

This shows the mecanum advantage not only on the regular field, but on the bump as well. And when in the beginning of the season, no one was sure if they would even be able to get up the bump with mecanums, this just shows that it can and more.

Unless your wheel base is less than 12", your going to have a hard time moving around on that bump with any other sort of drive. And even if it is that small, it will be time consuming and difficult to go off the bump in any other spot than where you started.

Just think of it like a fight. Who ever has the high ground has the advantage. And if we have a way to keep you off the top, we have the advantage.

[gorrilla]

What do you mean what's the point? Mobility is key every year and when you can be mobile anywhere on the field where other people can't, you have an advantage over them.

This shows the mecanum advantage not only on the regular field, but on the bump as well. And when in the beginning of the season, no one was sure if they would even be able to get up the bump with mecanums, this just shows that it can and more.

Unless your wheel base is less than 12", your going to have a hard time moving around on that bump with any other sort of drive. And even if it is that small, it will be time consuming and difficult to go off the bump in any other spot than where you started.

Just think of it like a fight. Who ever has the high ground has the advantage. And if we have a way to keep you off the top, we have the advantage.


I was just wondering why you would want to do this, other than trying to keep people off of the bump?

And with your mecanums that could prove very difficult.

[IndySam]

I was just wondering why you would want to do this, other than being able to keep people off of the bump?

And with your mecanums that could prove very difficult.

I can't wait to see how that is called. A bot strafing the bump to block another bot from coming over, then the second bot pushes the defending bot out of the way and it tumbles over. Will there be a penalty?

[GBilletdeaux930]

Hey man, unless your going over the bump at full speed, it will be a lot more difficult for you to push up when we push down.

And if you go over at full speed, we'll just get out of your way for obvious reasons.

[XaulZan11]

What do you mean what's the point? Mobility is key every year and when you can be mobile anywhere on the field where other people can't, you have an advantage over them.

Maybe other teams decided that mobility on the bumps isn't important so they did not put many, if any, resources into it.

Unless you have some clever strategy that I haven't thought of, I'm not sure I can see much benefit from being able to strafe on the bumps. Now if you could use it to climb onto the platform...

[GBilletdeaux930]

Well honestly, the bump strafing was never planned and ended up being a very nice bonus to our strategy.

But we really can't say until competition, the true bonus it really is. But we think it will bring some nice additions to the way we plan to play the game.

[gorrilla]

I can't wait to see how that is called. A bot strafing the bump to block another bot from coming over, then the second bot pushes the defending bot out of the way and it tumbles over. Will there be a penalty?

I wonder that too, but I would assume that the ref's would call in favor of the bot trying to ascend the bump due to this rule. unless of course, it was blatantly intentional.

"c. Contact outside the BUMPER ZONE is an expected part of the game during the following scenarios:
i. for ROBOTS on a RAMP or BUMP,"

Hey man, unless your going over the bump at full speed, it will be a lot more difficult for you to push up when we push down.

And if you go over at full speed, we'll just get out of your way for obvious reasons.

I think my 10 traction wheels will be able to outmatch your mecanums at any speed or angle ;)

[GBilletdeaux930]

I think my 10 traction wheels will be able to outmatch your mecanums at any speed or angle ;)

Agreeable. Lol. But you still can't say it has no benefit nor is it not an advantage. We gave up nothing for this ability. It was not part of our original plan. It was an added bonus. We are not limited in where we must descend from the bump.

If someone is in our way, or if two bots are trying to go up the same spot, we just go around them instead of backing down or wasting time trying to push our way through.

[JamesCH95]

I see a robot trying to block a bump like that getting flipped very easily. The other bot simply drives up the bump and has a nice pushing angle up on the robot that's strafing the bump. Hopefully you don't get turtled!

[robodude03]

Agreeable. Lol. But you still can't say it has no benefit nor is it not an advantage. We gave up nothing for this ability. It was not part of our original plan. It was an added bonus. We are not limited in where we must descend from the bump.

If someone is in our way, or if two bots are trying to go up the same spot, we just go around them instead of backing down or wasting time trying to push our way through.

That was my thought as well when I saw the video. If a robot is in your way on the other side of the bump this just gives your bot the ability to solve that issue by strafing to the side. Also you could use the bot to block a shot from a robot from one field to the other. As was mentioned in this thread, the added mobility is always a plus with FIRST competitions. Great job :)

[Jared SanMiguel]

and a lot of you are missing the point, with the bot on the bump that adds 12" to the height.....so makes shotting into the goal harder? i think so. and we didnt sacrifice time or effort to make sure we could do this it just happend to turn out that way

[Daniel_LaFleur]

and a lot of you are missing the point, with the bot on the bump that adds 12" to the height.....so makes shotting into the goal harder? i think so. and we didnt sacrifice time or effort to make sure we could do this it just happend to turn out that way

If you are saying that you intend to shoot from the bump ... that would involve CARRYING and thus get you a penalty.

If you are saying that you will defend from the bump (2nd defender?) ... Interesting strategy ... possibly viable, but I'm not convinced of its merits.

[Jared SanMiguel]

possibly viable indeed.

[Greg Needel]

I think everyone needs to step back for a second and consider what is really happening in this thread.

Obviously team 930 is proud of their robot and design and while it may not be the choices that other teams make that is 100% fine. The point of the competition is to make strategy and design choices which control the way you build your machine. At the end of the day some robots will win and some will loose, but if you follow the engineering design process you can't loose.

I encourage active discussion on to multiple design thoughts but saying that one team's idea is wrong is dumb and a waste of time. If I have learned one thing from my time in FIRST it is that no matter how many robot concepts my team comes up with I will always see something we didn't think of at a competition. If everyone had the same idea it would also be a very boring competition.


This year 2775 decided to go a different direction than 930 and our thinking was that the game is going to be physical in such a manner that you will need pushing power, so when we ranked what was important; Mecanum drives we not an option for us. This year strategy will very important and having unique abilities will definitely bring something to an alliance.

[Puffin]

Oh wow this blew my mind! This robot can be pretty good at blocking other robots.