Re: [FTC]: Opinion on lifting robots
 

Well coming from Florida where we are doing the new "League System" Playing defense does absolutely nothing for you. Its a pretty good motivation to build something that works and actually try to get into the state championship which is much harder for us this year.

- Andrew

Re: [FTC]: Opinion on lifting robots
 

Care to link or explain what the "League System" is?

Re: [FTC]: Opinion on lifting robots
 

Basically Florida is being split up into "Leagues" its basically districts. Each league has set amounts of teams and host competitions At least 3 Competitions. Each Competition has a cap at ~14 teams, but there is something different about them, League competitions are simply scrimmages you play matches all day, no finals, no awards. HOWEVER Team performance is tracked as it is used to then decide who goes to the League Championship, which is basically what we all know as a Qualifier.

From the League Championships hosted around Florida the best teams earn their way into the State Championship. From there we earn into Worlds.

With this system Leagues have to hold at least one "built-it day" (lots of other variations of names).

Teams also compete strictly in their Leagues, However Inter-League play is doable, just means you have to go to multiple competitions outside of your league to get into the league championship.

Its confusing I know, and the only thing I don't like about it is the fact I can't ref every competition in Florida anymore :( But overall the quality/caliber of the teams in the State Championship will be much higher as you can no longer earn your way in from hosting competitions.

Hope that explains it well enough, If I got anything wrong people in a League system are allowed to correct me :)

- Andrew

Re: [FTC]: Opinion on lifting robots
 

After what teams did this past year with more restrictive build rules I would say ignore the 24" lift at your own peril.

Re: [FTC]: Opinion on lifting robots
 

This tread has died out, and it should not have, so I am reviving it.

We competed in the 1st week of qualifiers here in Illinois a couple weeks ago, where we were the only team to deploy any lifting mechanism. Our system was merely an almost 18 x 18" gravity deployed, fold out ramp that angled downward on deployment and allowed the partner to drive up to a point where their center of weight moving up the platform tipped the angled platform back to horizontal at an elevation of 1.5".

It only gave 30 points, but with the low level of scoring in most matches this would have given a winning score for most matches, where more than one row bonus rarely occurred.

We found that most partners could not make it up our ramp, despite its low angle and wide width. Some were too wide and unable to drive straight, causing their wheel to go off one side. Some were too slow and the ramp tilted too soon (our fault - bad design), hooking their frame or rear wheels before they got up.

In the one match where we had a small footprint partner with good driving skills, we found out how easy it was to defend against our lift. As we deployed the ramp, while our partner was finishing their last ring scoring trip, the opponent merely parked next to the loading edge of the ramp. effectively blocking access.

We had not had time to practice strategy for this situation, and even though we were touched by the defender as we tried to reposition for our partner to have access to the ramp, because we and our partner were not yet in contact at the point where the opponent contacted us, there was no penalty assessed.

So, it became clear that an aggressive lift blocking opponent could easily make bot loading a much less than certain proposition, even with a small bot with good agility. True, they were taking a risk of a big penalty, had we made contact with our partner while the opponent touched us, but it worked for them. Also, our bot could not move very effectively once the platform deployed, so this also was a handicap to overcoming the blocking move.

On top of all these issues, the low scoring of all the matches (only one reached 100 point level) made it clear that using the last 30 seconds to gain multiple row bonuses was a much better way to spend our time.

We have removed our platform and are now concentrating on using the last 30 seconds for getting more scoring trips completed. When one scoring trip placing two single rings can give as much as 190 points (5 row bonuses), a lift that cannot go up at least 20+" is probably not worth implementing.

-Dick Ledford

Re: [FTC]: Opinion on lifting robots
 

If a team were using a "forklift/platform type lift that extended more than 18" out from the robot (aside from being tough to lift) how would it work if they were under the other teams robot and their alliance robot and attempted to lift both at the same time. Would that be a penalty and on which team. Just a thought problem one of the teams was contimplating today.

They actually think it could be done.