Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

If you have won a regional, district or championship event this year please answer one question.
Do you build a second(practice) bot??
Thanks
Bruce

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We always plan to. We don't always get one built that helps a lot.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We haven't won an event since 2001, but this year we made our first practice bot, and it really showed. We performed 300 times better than we have our previous years. I highly suggest making one if you can.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Team 190 did not have a practice robot (now, or ever in the past), but we did keep our shooter between each event and attach it to a 2x4 and plywood replica of the last stage of our collector. We designed the shooter to come on and off the robot in about 1/2 hour or less and have quick disconnect wires for all the motors and sensors. While not as beneficial as a practice robot, this did give our programmers the opportunity to work on the vision targeting code and get some baseline numbers down for our shooting positions.

Our total expenditure was nothing, as we only used stuff that was laying around in our lab and the actual, competition ready shooter.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

I didn't vote because neither of my teams won a regional, but what do you consider a practice bot? I know 2079 always has some form of a bot that can be used to practice driving, but it's certainly not a clone of the competition bot either.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

3259 built a practice bot. We won at SMR this year along side 772 and 234. One problem we had was that our practice bot had a much lower center of gravity than the competition bot. Our drive team got used to the performance of the practice bot between SMR and St Louis, and as a result we ended up with some tipping/stability issues at Championships. However, I feel that overall use of the practice bot was a great benefit to our performance.

Aaron

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

This is the first year we built a practice robot, but not the first year we have won a regional. Our team nearly doubled in size and it was benneficial to give more students hands on experience. Every time the practice robot broke I cheered a little thinking this was one more weakness we can correct on the real robot before it becomes a problem.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We didn't win an event this year, but the year that we did, (2010 Oklahoma) we did not have a practice bot nor did we have some equivilant to that effect.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We were alliance captain #7 at the Orlando regional seeded 9th overall and captain #2 seeded 3rd overall at the South Florida regional. We did not win an event but I think our overall numbers reflect a solid season. We did build a full practice bot and it did improve our performance between regionals. 1251 has done so for many years and every year the practice bot is done, we do perform better, it does increase performance bottomline. What gets me is we have a season like this past year and everyone around the team/ in the state says 1251 had a bad year, that however is a diffrent discussion.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We started building the practice bot, but by week 5 it was lagging behind the main machine due to parts delays and re-designs, so we decided to focus our efforts on finishing the main machine. The progress that we made on the second chassis was still valuable, as it allowed us to play around with stinger geometry and mounting arrangements prior to Boston.

We will likely continue to plan on building a second robot for next year and beyond, but the unbagging windows that come with our move to a district competition model let us get by without it this year.

EDIT: Prior to 2012, we have built a complete practice robot in every season from 2006 onwards.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

A brief summary of my 4 years on 1507:
2009: 1 regional win, 1 regional semifinalist, 1 division win
2010: 1 regional quarterfinalist
2011: 1 regional finalist
2012: 2 regional wins, 1 division quarterfinalist
All 4 wins came as alliance captain.

All with no practice bot. I've always wanted to, be it hasn't been practical to us so we make do without.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

I spoke with quite a few powerhouses on Friday at Champs, and every single one but 341 said that they made a practice bot.

The interesting thing is that some teams choose to make a "clone bot" after the production one is complete, and others make the competition bot based on the practice one.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We build one but call it a prototype. This year's was closer to the real one than most years. Often it is simply built of 80-20 extrusion.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Jim Zondag asked myself and another mentor to conducted a survey of the top 25 OPR teams in each division during the Championship with some questions about practie robots and practicing. Thank you to all of those that helped with the survey. We were able to get 85 of the 100 teams we intended to talk to (I blame the 15 missed on the MAR teams as I spent a lot of time discussing their experience in the district model with them:p ). Jim will be talking our results and compiling a paper on it. I will likely add a commentary section as the survey brought up a lot of interesting discussion.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

I didn't vote, as we did not win a regional this year. Last year we did not build a practice bot, last year we won two regionals. This year and for the first time ever, we built a practice bot. We were able to, due to great sponsorship support this year. Last year we were a team of 15, that graduated 9 seniors. This year we were a team of 28 with 5 returning members. Last year we stayed on schedule, had a simple design, had two weeks of driver training and a working autonomous before bag day. This year, we finished the robot, just in time to give the drivers about 4 hours of practice time before bagging, and an untested autonomous. Last year we competed week one, and was the best bot at Kettering. (Jim Zondag's words, not mine). This year we were not. (my words). This is our stats this year from Ed Law's scouting data.


Kettering Regional 1 CCWM [-0.1,-0.9,16] OPR[7.7,7.6,11]
Livonia Regional 2 [1.6, 7.1, 9] [17.8,21.7, 6]
Mich States Regional 3 [3.5,15.6,2] [26.6,28.0,6]

So last year's team probably wouldn't have benefited from building a 2nd bot. Last year, we spent our time refining minibots during the competition season. This year we had a huge return on the investment of building a 2nd bot. So the rate of return in building the 2nd bot, really seems to be determined by where you are on bag day. If you are the best bot out of 40 week 1, why spend the money, you can prototype tweaks and use your out of bag time to improve systems that need it. If your are the other 39 bots competing week 1, you have more opportunity for the investment to pay off.

If we have the money next year, we will build a practice bot. It is a rare event when you get to be the best bot on week 1, and even though we will strive for that again, the odds are not in our favor.

We spent around $4,200 for the practice bot, $1,500 of that was a cRio and the Andymark 2nd bot electronics kit, both will be reused for next year. The second bot is also more expensive, because of purchasing any KOP parts you need too.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Spectrum built a practice bot this year for the 1st time. (This is my first year with a practice bot and also with this team though I have been doing FIRST for 10 years).

Our regional schedule put us at a week 5 and 6 regional. If we didn't have a practice bot we would have been sitting on our hands for 5 weeks not doing anything. Our practice bot wasn't that costly at all, after you consider that we wanted to have spare gearboxes, motors, and sensors for our robot anyway the cost was essentially just the metal which was under $200. We gutted most of the control system (cRIO, jaguars & camera) from the real robot before we bagged it and installed it all again on Thursday during our 1st event.

The practice bot was useful and it did give a second group of students the chance to basically build the robot. However we didn't have a place to setup a practice field and I feel like that really limited the usefulness of the practice bot. We still learned a lot of things about the robot during the events because we were never able to really put the practice bot through it's paces on a practice field for very long.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

The one year we built a practice robot (2011) was the only year that we won an event.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

I answered yes, but more accurately would be "After building your practice bot, did you build a second (production) bot?"

Like pancakes, the second one is always better than the first. And it is built a lot faster, since all the design is essentially done.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

This. Practice bot gets built first, production bot done second. We've built practice bots every year since 2007, and it makes a big difference with robot quality as well as driver quality.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

BX has talked for a couple of years about wanting a practice bot, but has yet gotten to the place where we have enough funding to do so. We hope to do this next year though.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

This was the first year we had the resources to build a practice bot and it really helped. We had one electrical panel and one shooter, so those were parts in our 40 lbs "spare parts".

Where it helped was giving the drive team more "behind the wheel" experience and in allowing our programmers to get 5 autonomous routines working (although we only ever used 2, it was nice to have the options) and to fine tune our auto-targeting. We actually didn't get the practice bot working until week 2 of the competition season (our regionals were weeks 3 & 5). We were never an alliance captain (not enough CP), but we were good enough to get picked and were part of the winning Palmetto alliance.

The main downside was our single electrical panel. It had all our Jaguars on it. We use CAN bus and direct connect many sensors to the Jaguars. So we had to have connectors for all the wiring (power and sensors). We had cronic problems with the encoder signals and at Championships we soldered around the connectors for two encoders. One of our off-season projects for electrical is to find better connectors for the sensors.

It takes resources (time and money) to build a second bot; but I would say it was worth it, especially if you attend more than one regional or have some very talented programmers who never seem to get enough time with the completed robot during build season to get the software working.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Hi,
This year was the first time that the Tronic Titans built a practice bot, and it significantly helped with our performance. We seeded higher than ever before at both of the competitions we attended, and managed to break our "quarterfinals curse", making it to the finals at GTR West. Much of this success can be contributed to our practice robot work time, as it allowed us to fine tune our shooting and bridge lowering capabilities, which greatly helped at competition.

Overall, I would say that having a practice has been the single best thing we have done to increase our performance at competition.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We built a practice bot this year for the first time ever. We won our first ever regional (SMR) with 234, and 3259 (both have practice bots). We were first seed in that regional.

Unfortunately for us, the drivers didnt get much time to practice driving. The programmers always had the bot and never let us have time driving. And when they weren't doing anything it was when our mentor was un able to stay for us to practice.

I want to build a second bot next year also. Hopefully have more time driving it. I dont think The mentors or Programmers have any idea how important it is to practice driving. Especially with the benefit of having the second robot to practice.

We were one of the teams interviewed by 33, hope to see the paper from it soon :)

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

^I second this one, all 3 of our teams build a prototype, then afterwords build our final, hopefully much, MUCH lighter. [We always seem to get 140lb prototype bots!!!:ahh:]

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We (971) have built a practice bot which is a clone of the competition bot since 2010 (I'm not sure about before then; The only event we had won previous to 2009 was SVR in 2004). The bots are built simultaneously, though the focus generally shifts to one as ship day approaches, so we finish up the practice bot after ship. The two robots are theoretically identical, though minor differences crop up over time (eg, we do not have sponsor stickers on the practice bot, as I said, minor differences).

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

To elaborate on James's point:

The first year 971 built a practice robot was 2009, the year we started our more successful streak by winning the Silicon Valley Regional and World Championships (thanks 67+111).
The practice bot that year was more of a kitbot, with hopper and dumper added on. It was far from identical to the comp bot and had jamming issues beyond what the comp bot had I believe.

2010 was the first year we built relatively identical practice robots. The same sheetmetal pieces were used for both robots, only modified later. The comp bot was completed before the practice robot was started.

In 2011 we started putting together the practice robot frame around the same time as our comp bot. We did not get that far, and sameness was definitely an issue. We had to take the entire minibot launching assembly of the practice bot and put it on the comp bot at SVR. We ended up putting on a similar but slightly different launcher on the practice robot when we ran 2 bots at the Madtown Throwdown.

In 2012, we actually started wiring both robots at the same time. We did much of the assembly right after the other, and as time ran out, focused on one. The practice bot was pretty much up and running within a week after bag n' tag.

Differences in the robots most often accumulate once the comp bot is safely in the bag. Often we figure out through extensive running that some parts need shoring up, or we come up with new ideas that we change on the practice bot, test, then apply to the comp bot once we have an idea of what works and what doesn't This year, we changed the shooter hood piston throw, enabling us to get a better key shot. With the practice bot running for many hours, we can start to see workability and sturdiness issues before they would occur in an actual competition, letting us know of what needs to be changed before we even unbag the robot.

Sorry for the longish post. I hope teams wishing to find information find what they seek.

-Kevin

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Fondy Fire's practice robot was the chassis and ball collector from our 2009 robot with the shooter from our competition robot this year. I would say it definitely helped the programming and drive teams prepare for the Championship.

It also helps to have access to a good practice field, and to be able to scrimmage with other teams. Thanks to Team 2826 and 93 for this!

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

This post another point that is very important. It's great that teams can build practice robots. This gives them opportunities that they did not have before, such as programming and iteration. However, to get the full benefits of the practice robot, a team must have at least some access to a practice field. In each of the years that 971 has had a practice robot, 254 and 1868 have generously allowed us to use their practice facility. For us at least, building the practice bot was only part of it. Seeing it run and testing on an actual field was just as important.

-Kevin

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We did not win any competitions this year (still have hopes for this summer) but we did build a practice robot for the first time. But as several people have said already, ours was more a prototype robot. It was build from our designs, so it was very similar to our competition robot. Working with that robot we found some of the weak points in our design. We were able to make our conveyor system more reliable and the final robot about 2.5 inches shorter. We also figured out that we needed to flip around a motor and reposition some of our controls slightly. The practice/prototype robot (with our actual shooter, which was designed to be quickly removed and remounted) also allowed us to practice autonomous and practice driving before Queen City and between Queen City and the Championships. We have three working cRIOs and a lot of extra electronics, wheels and hardware from 10 years of competition, so the prototype robot was not a big financial stress. We actually did it because we fell a little short of our goal of attending two regional competitions for the first time ever. As we have a large team it gave more people something to do as well.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

we have built a prototype for the past 5 - 6 years.

we first build prototype parts and small systems, then get them sorted.

then we build a prototype robot, based on the emerging design we are creating. we build it with the intent to be funcationally equal, but it is often heavier and uglier than the competition robot. it has extra holes, used parts, etc. After it is built and tested, we then finalize the design and buid the competition version.

we have learned to go back and rework the prototype to make it work like the competiton robot where it is needed, otherwise there can be subtle differences that can cause great pains.

it also makes building the competition robot faster and it is more durable because it only has to be assembled once, since all (most ;) ) of the lessons are learned on the prototype.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

There is no doubt that our on field performance has increased significantly since we started building a practice robot three years ago.

We benefit from all the things that have already been stated but there are also intangibles that building a practice/prototype brings.

It compresses your build time so you can actually build two robots. This forces you to make decisions quicker and be much more organized. It also makes you raise more money which in itself brings other benefits.

I have yet to find a downside to it.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We built a basically identical un-painted robot this year as a practice robot.

This year we used the practice robot to:

-Practice match driving (2:30 runs)
-practice specific manuvers including double and triple balancing, jumping over the bump and downfielding balls, and of course aiming and shooting under heavy defense.
-improved targeting and shooting software
-developed both a center and side bridge auto that shot 4 balls.

We also make every change we ever plan on making to the comp. robot to the practice robot first to see how quickly we can do it, any problems that may arise, and if we actually like the changes we are thinking about making.

These are those changes from this year that I can remember off the top of my head:
-improved internal ball guides into the throat.
-sped up external collector.
-Changed front drive wheels for better turning proformance (twice)
-Changed gearing from a AM 1:4 to the 1:2.54 and modified final chain reduction from 24:12 to 22:12
-moved battery mount to front of robot to move CoG forward.
-Took antibackdrive pins out of window motor (for turret)
-Made many fang profiles (for getting over the bump)
-Shimmed out our bumpers 1/2 of an inch in the front to accomadate new fang profile.
-Moved our hood articulator to accomodate starting the turret backwards for auto.
-Moved a pot for the collector/bridge manipulator that was giving us trouble to a better location.
-put a ball sensor in the throat of the robot to sense balls immediatly when they went into the robot.
-many others.

It is also worth noting that a simulated field (or actual field) is very important to getting solid practice out of a second robot. Most of the powerhouse teams that build practice robots also have full fields to practice on.

Regards, Bryan

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

I used to believe this was true, but after surveying this past weekend, I have found it to be not true.
Yes many of the top performing teams have a full field. Most have a 1/2 to 3/4 field.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

We won both Philadelphia 2011 and Hatboro-Horsham 2012 & MAR Championship 2012 with a practice robot (and a roughly full field, though we could have shrunk some). It definitely helps a lot, including driving, programming (both hybrid period and autonomous assists in teleop) and mechanical improvements. I think the biggest thing it's made us do is build more quickly, though. We're still not fast enough, but it's getting there.

We always want to build the practice bot first, but in 2011 we got them done at the same time (seemed impressive then), and in 2012 we finished it around a week after bag & tag. Our goal for 2013 is to get it built first, at least in terms of each system.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

I voted yes to the poll. We did had a practice robot that was very benificial to our programming team before and during the season. It was disassembled before we headed to St. Louis for spare parts.

We have built practice robots in 2005, 06, 09, 10, 11, and 12. Sometimes they are useful for driver practice, programming, etc...other times they are torn down for spare parts because they are not being used during the season.

One of the biggest benefits we get out of the practice bot is that we learn what works an doesn't work, in terms of design, manufacturing, and assembly as we build the first robot. This helps improve the quality of build between our practice robot and our competition robot.

I would suggest building a practice bot if have time and funding too and you are going to use it to improve before and during the season. Do not build one if it is going to effect the build quality or completion of your competition robot.

Competing in Michigan we get lots of driving experience in matches. We did not practice at all in 2009 or 2010. Actually the practice robot in 2009 was torn down before the season to fix the competition robot. In 2010 the practice robot was used for driver tryouts (before the grabber was installed), then we competed in week 1...so no more practice was conducted. In 2011 we practice a couple of times before the season, but never in the season.

This year the practice bot was identical and fully functional. We practiced a couple of times before the season. Once before Waterford. Once before Northville. And, then we practiced triple balancing before we left for St. Louis (so much for that..:rolleyes: ).

We have about a 1/4 field that we setup and teardown everytime we want to practice. It usually takes about 10min to setup.

This setup works for us...it may or may not work for your team. I judge if we need additional practice by comparing ourselves to the rest of the teams out there, if more is needed we do it, if not then we don't.

As my good friend JVN says, your mileage may vary...

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

103 constructs a full sized field every year. I can tell you from personal experience that the amount it helps cannot be understated.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Full field envy. We dont even have enough room to set up the hoop and the bridge in the same place.
But that is another issue.
Thanks for all the input.
Bruce

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Our team has never built ourselves a practice robot. We have neither the time or the resources to devote to such an endeavor as building an entire secondary robot. As much as it would help our programming team in being to continue working on a secondary bot while the primary one has already shipped, we just don't have the ability to do such. The best we do is have the programming team work on a robot from a previous year until the one we're building for the current season is complete enough for them to begin actively working on it.

This ws the first year I can remember where our programming team had more than the last 3 days before it had be shipped to actually program though. They had almost a full week! :D

When it comes to making a practice field, we usually build what's necessary. This year we had the baskets and a bridge built and just placed them in the gym for practice. We've never built an entire field before as far having all of the pieces, but what we do build are the essential devices for us to practice with. When it comes close to shipping time we also usually combine with 378 - The Circuit Stompers and their portion of the field to test autonomous modes and competition driving.

The idea that we used with The SUITS at FLR where they fed us balls during the Hybrid mode as we shot them was actually first devised at the Kenan Center with 378 a couple of days before shipping. I was quite ecstatic to see the idea come to light, even if it was with another team.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

Since 2010 Wave has completed an identical practice bot. I will echo all the words said before and add, I can't imagine not having a practice bot to, well, practice with. The human element of this game is the most underdeveloped an often over looked aspect of the game. Even the powerhouse teams could have the best machine in the world and with no practice, fail dismally.

In 2011, Wave had a phenomenal year with well designed, well executed, piece of junk, will never, ever do again octocanum drive. The ONLY reason we did well with a sub-par drive was that our drive team spent literally 312 collective man-hours finding a way to "make it work" before champs.

That being said, we are extremely lucky to have to sponsors we have.

Muza Metal Products builds absolutely every sheet metal part we ask for for 2.5 robots. Without them, we would have to scramble even more than we do

Triangle Manufacturing (the same company that provides KOP Lazy Susans) machines any custom parts we need and has EDM capabilities which is great for gear manufacture

CR Meyer provides half a hangar where they keep one of their planes. We use this for a full plywood field setup.

BTW, we had to work our butt off to get and keep such great sponsors and we are fortunate to have such great partners.

Dang Adam, rub it in... Why was it so easy on the practice field? (balls fists in frustration)

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

1918 has never built a practice bot. However, we do whatever we can to maximize practice/access time. We have a drivable chassis by week 3, so it starts there. We have a functionally complete robot by week 5. We attend a practice "opportunity" on weekend 6. Being in Michigan, we get at least 2 district events with 6 hours of "out of the bag" time prior to each. We usually go to a week 1 event, so there is only one week off between bag day and "out of bag" practice time. This year, we did 3 districts - every other weekend, so we were never more than 1 week without driving practice/upgrade time. Prior to MSC and CMP, we removed the shooter (built as a removable assembly for that reason) and were able to upgrade/test it by mounting in on a wooden frame and powering/controlling it with our test mule (spare cRio, etc. on a board). Going to the 3rd district event cost a lot less than building a full practice bot.

A duplicate practice bot would be nice, but there are other ways to get most of the benefits.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

FRC2168 was #1 seed at both NYC and CT (though we were knocked out in the semis do to control system problems) and we do not build a second robot.

Our robot was completed at the end of week 5, and the drivers had a week of fighting over the robot with the programmers. We were then lucky enough to compete at the Suffield Shakedown Scrimmage and win.

Our drivers are trained each year with previous robots and a kitbot that we work on now and then. New "drills" are created to get the drivers used to driving in situations similar to the current game. We take driver training very seriously, and in the offseason practice as least once a week.

While we would like to get to the point where we can build two robots we have not yet reached the support and resources we believe are required.

Re: Poll on winning teams using practice bots
 

The TechnoKats Lunacy robot had an electrical/controls box that was completely separable from the rest of the robot. All of the sensor signals went through a single DB-25 connector. We occasionally used a long extension cable to connect the box to the robot during software development.