Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I have started this thread here to put into discussion arguably what I think the best climbing strategy of 2013 was. This is also to put into question how teams solved this engineering problem by ingeniously designing their mechanisms to climb. Feel free to post your thoughts of this and concepts of how you think teams climbed the corner of the pyramid successfully.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Look at all three Einstein winning teams. Pure cyclers (and 2 with ground pickups). 30 point climbing is nice, but it was not the most reliable (see 67, 1114, 254) strategy this year.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Correct, but then again the 1114 118 alliance in Galileo had the highest score out of any alliance at champs. If 1114 would have had the time to fix their climber before Galileo finals so it didn't stick, they most likely would have won champs. 1114 and 118 were cyclers as well they just had problems keeping them from moving onto Einstein.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

It depends how you define "best."

Most reliable? Hardest to defend? Highest scoring? Greatest crowd pleaser?

And are we talking about corner climbing as the best "overall" strategy or in comparison to other climbing methods?

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I wouldn't say any team was most likely to win champs. If you remember 469/33 was consider by most a shoe-in to win it all before the finals started.

On topic now...

For climbing, I do not believe there was a "best" strategy. It was more about the room you had on your robot. 254/1986 robots were very fast at climbing along the faces. 67/1114 were fast at climbing the corners.

The one difference I see is that 254/1986 did not give up the ability to pick up off the floor with the face climbing, while 1114/67 did with corner climbing.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I think it is the best because it is the most risky way to climb. If you slip off a rung you probably will flip over and on to the ground. It is also the least stable because you only can hold on to one rung at a time. so the body of you robot can twist.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Agreed. Our team's climber also went wonky in the quarterfinals on Archimedes and couldn't climb higher than the second level. Our autonomous climb ran smoothly all season and failed at the worst time. Due to the complexity of climbing this year I'm not surprised by the wear and tear among the 30 point climb club. Looking back at the season, we would have still stuck with our climber it provides unique flexibility in a match.

I also think the reason 30 point climbers were so rare this season especially in the elimination rounds came from too many rules, low point value for the level 3 climb*, and Robot In 3 Days.

The reason I bring up RI3D is because I feel as though a lot of teams who would normally have focused on one aspect of the game, specifically the endgame, were inspired by the RI3D robot and strategy. Looking back at the season there were tons of teams who used a similar shooter and/or feed system. Looking at the RI3D robot, the real limitation in the point score was how quickly you could travel to the feeder station which for many teams was 3-4 trips, plus autonomous, plus a quick 10 point hang. This greatly outweighed a 30 point climb which for many teams it was a choice between one and the other.

That being said I love RI3D! Those guys worked hard and they really brought such a unique aspect to the season and served as an inspiration to many teams. I really look forward to seeing what the 2014 season brings for them.

*35 would have been a better score for level 3 IMHO*

Back on topic.

To be honest, I really loved the strategy 469 used this season. They have a very reliable autonomous with both center line and under the pyramid, quick cycler, quick floor pickup, extremely accurate full court (from both sides of the field) shooter, and a fast 10 point climb. Such a versatile machine that can cause a lot of damage in a match from many angles!

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Similarly, 254 & 1986 (and us) gave up dumping the colored discs while 1114 & 67 did.

This year was really about trade offs and was a strategists dream with so many different aspects of the game to play. Its really hard to say what the best strategy was.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I would say this is how not to climb the corner. Actually we drove up the corner. For most of the season we were a cycler and our caterpillar drive did not work. It was only on Saturday at worlds that our system really started to work. It was an intense obsessive effort for the entire season. This is a video of it in action. It was taken by a Gopro camera mounted under the robot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=O4GK4HfHiBM
Notice that the 2nd leg does not release when it should. The season is over but we are still trying to dial it in.

This is a 3D model of the drive
http://wiki.team1640.com/index.php?t...terpillar2.jpg

We poured an unbelievable amount of resources into it but it works - kind of.
This is a link to our website detailing the project.
http://wiki.team1640.com/index.php?t...erpillar_Drive
Note the state machine diagram at the bottom of the page. It stressed our programmers too.

I don't consider it economic success. Given the resources pour into vs. the contribution to points in the competitions. It's a looser. How ever if we look at the skill sets and knowledge that our students gain from this design build project it's huge. Really huge. It forced our students to really step it up. I'm proud of their accomplishment.

After surviving the caterpillar drive project, I can't help feeling the GDC is evil. They created the pyramid climb thing knowing full well that teams like us could not resist the challenge and would jump at it. They knew the pain suffering climbing the pyramid would bring to teams. Well done GDC, well done, You got us good.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

It might be hard to define best, but I think that given the constraints, I think the jury is in: 30 pt. climbers weren't worth it. When 1114 can't make it work reliably it's fair to say that most teams would be better off with a different strategy.

If you had unlimited time and resources to build the ultimate robot to play ultimate ascent, I think you would end up with a corner climber. Specifically, you would get one that did a passive, after the buzzer 30-pt climb.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I felt floor-up was highly more valuable then the colored disks... There were also face climbers who could dump.

I looked at it more of method of climbing, than to climb or not to climb..

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I could almost write a book on this subject. We had a fairly fast (under 30 seconds including alignment) corner climber with the ability to dump colored discs. It wasn't the best climber out there, but we got it to work fairly well. It took over our lives most of the season and it dominated our strategy and fate. Was corner climbing the best strategy of 2013? I would say no. Was it the best strategy for us? I still don't know, but I am glad we did it. It was what I call a "white knuckle ride" all season.

Our robot did a lot of things OK, but wasn't outstanding at any of them. We had a floor pickup arm that let us run a 5 shot autonomous, but generally it was faster for us to run cycles than collect from the floor. We could run 4 cycles in a match if we didn't plan on a climb & dump. In addition to the corner climber, we could do a "quick 10" hang from the low bar.

We only won once this year. That was Week 1 at Traverse City when we only had a 3-shot auton, never did more than 3 cycles, and never climbed - just hung for 10. Our OPR was around 40 - our lowest event all season, but we still won. Climbing was not a factor. General lesson: If you show up on Week 1 with a functional robot and a drive team that has had some practice, you can do well.

Our second event was West Michigan on Week 4. By then, our climber was ready to try in "battle". We had also improved on some other "lessons learned" from Week 1. The climber set back our overall performance. Since we hadn't used it in a match before, we would quit cycling and allow ourselves at least a full minute at the pyramid for alignment and climbing. If we wanted to carry discs, we needed to quit cycling even earlier in order to get them. Our best match was 5 shots in auton, 2 cycles, and a climb & dump (104 points). That was the exception, and we spent a lot of time & energy trying to repeat it. What usually happened was that our opponents would see us collecting colored discs, then swarm all over us until we didn't have enough time to climb. We managed to make it to the finals, but it wasn't because of our climber.

Our third event was MSC. By then we were getting desparate to make the climb & dump a strategic and visible success. We got off to a lousy start, going 1-3 in our first four matches, despite improvements that cut our alignment time and sped up our climb. We were almost ready to go straight from autonomous to loading colored discs and climbing in order to demonstrate a consistently successful climb & dump, when we realized that the dump had become our worst enemy. It was an all-or-nothing option, and in order to achieve the "all" we were giving up more than we stood to gain. We quit trying to dump, and didn't even worry so much about reaching the 30 point climb. We went back to trying four cycles and then climbed as high as we could in the time we had left. Most of the defense went away. We were productive for the whole match. Our max scoring potential for a match was 108 (30 auton, 48 teleop, 30 climb). We never quite achieved that, but our average scoring was in the mid 80's for most of Friday and Saturday. We won our last 9 qual matches. We had a good run through eliminations, but lost the semi's in 3 matches. Partly because of a shooter motor failure, but mostly because we just got beat by the superior alliance of 2054, 67, and 2337. By that time, the climber was showing signs of wear and tear.

At Championship, we "struggled" (stunk) in quals due to shooter and drive train issues. The climber was working, and was one of the reasons we got picked by 4814 & 67 for elims. Our job was to shoot 5 in auton, create a shooting lane for 67's FCS, then climb. The strategy worked well enough to get us three matches into the Curie finals.

In our case, the climber was the difference between a decent season as an average cycler in a crowd of better cyclers, and a great season (in our opinion) where we had the ability to do great things when it all worked. It was stressful, but exciting. We have lots of vivid memories, but they aren't all about the high points. The design of our climber had a lot more mentor content than any other system on the robot (or any other robot we have built). I suspect that it true of many teams that climbed this year, and I am not sure that's a great thing. Using it put a lot of stress on the drivers - especially the one that operated the climber. There has never been a game where a simple miscue could so easily result in a season-ending catastrophy. We wanted to have a student field coach this year, but I held that role for myself until we we were having good climbing success. If our season was going to end in a crash, I wanted it to happen on MY watch, after I told the drivers to go for it, when I gave them the go-ahead to proceed from one level to the next. I wasn't confident early on, and I wasn't going to put that responsibility on the students. We never did have a student field coach. That wasn't such a great thing, either.

From what I observed, it sounds like almost every climbing team experienced failures at critical moments. In my opinion, the points for climbing to level 2 & 3 weren't proportional to the work and risk it took to accomplish it. I don't think a single robot on Einstein got there mainly because of their ability to climb. By that standard, climbing (corner or wherever) was definitely not the best strategy of 2013.

PS: We took two famous falls this year. Fortunately, neither ended our season.
(1) MSC Q101 where we won 247-70. We were paired with 33 and 67, and could have set the season-high score had we completed our climb and dump instead of falling from the 20 point level. We only contributed 30 of the 247.
(2) Curie Final match #1 where we won 186-0. We were at the 30 point level with a bad grip. When 67 reached the top, they hit the crown of the pyramid hard enough to knock us loose. The referees blamed 862 for knocking us off, and their alliance got red-carded.
In both cases, we were able to climb in our next match, but our poor robot is suffering.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

It may not have been an economic design success, but in addition to what your students learned from it, with the excellent documentation you've collectively produced, I'll be using this as an example of what's possible to inspire my team for next season.

Awesome use of the GoPro! With that positioning, you had a way to see what had gone wrong on climbs so you knew what to fix on a part you'd never be able to see properly from driving position or the stands.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

In my opinion, strategically the best climber is the fastest climber. A climber that takes half a match isn't worth it.

A climber that takes half a match but also dumps is pushing it.

A fast climber is worth it.

A fast climber that dumps is gold. (<10-15 seconds maybe?)

See 1114 (pre-cmp elims) & 254.

Both valuable and strategic climbers, but different methods.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I'm going to throw a shout out to team 1421's climbing concept. Their scissor lift inside climb with the dump in around 25-30 seconds was arguably the most reliable climb at champs. The best part about their climb was that they could extend their lift during the match to block quite a few fcs. I believe a corner climber had an advantage of being able to cycle better due to it usually being able to climb at a faster rate than the side climbers. My strongest point on corner climbing being the best way to climb for 30 is the teams that decided on corner climbing, 67, 71, 217, and 1114 + many other great teams. If those four elite level inspirational teams all decided to climb the corner over the side, then how can I argue that it wasn't the premier climbing option. Yes you can argue that three of these teams didn't make it to Einstein due to mechanical problems from their climbers( 217, 1114 both had problems and 67's partner 1918 had a few issues from their memorable "pyramid dive"sorry for bringing it back up) but as far as strategy goes I think it's a solid choice. It also says something that the only 30 pt. climb on Einstein was by team 1640, who had a corner climb.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

217 never climbed past 10 (in a match), so I don't know why they keep being mentioned as a elite 30 point climber.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

They had the mechanism, but were never able to get it working. I haven't even seen them pull off a 10 point hang.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I was just point out the strategy not the execution per say. I believe they intended to climb for 30 but they had a rough season this year as far as it goes mechanically. I was just analyzing the Thunderchickens choice. Instead of looking at them as an elite 30 point climber. I was looking at them as an elite team who attempted to 30 pt. climb from the corner. They just were unable to pull it off (which is extremely rare due to 217 being such a great team). Sorry for the confusion.:o

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Although it may not have propelled us to the Einstein field, we, team 1448, were content with our 34 second corner climber that dumped four colored discs. I don't think there was another robot at championships that used our rack and pinion system, which in my opinion was extremly reliable, as our robot never failed a climb given the time.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I wouldn't say that there was any one specific "best" strategy for this season, for either overall game play and/or climbing.

Outside of the Einstein winning strategy, there were a number of very successful strategies that could have been just as successful given slightly different circumstances. Cycling, FCS, Floor pickup, Corner climbing, Side climbing, etc... were all in play leading into and up to Einstein.

Specifically to corner climbing for us....we decided to persue this type of climbing to allow for room for an additional climber. It was also the first method of climbing that we were able to meet (barely) the original 54" cylinder rule. We not a fan of swinging while climbing, and didn't really have time/resources to proto-type any other methods of climbing. We didn't even prototype our corner climber method....we were all or nothing on getting it to work or fail trying.

By going after this method of climbing and the design we chose, it significantly impacted our ability to floor load. We tried to pursue a flip down floor loader for a while, but were unable to meet all the packaging requirements to do both.

Climbing the pyramid for 30pts was our #1 design priority. We significantly under-estimated the # of discs that could be scored, either through FCS or cycling. The ease at which good teams scored discs really de-valued the importance of climbing. Combine that with the importance of autonomous as a tie-breaker, and I would say that our design priorities were really out of whack this year.

But, even with that being said there was a place for climbing in this game. 254 and 1986 showed it was possible to do while still pulling off multi-disc autos and 1114 showed it was possible to overcome the auto disadvantage by cycling 3/4 times and climbing+dumping quickly.

IMO - Being able to score discs + Climbing and/or dumping = Inspiration.

In the end, we may have had more success going a different route....but, I think getting the climber working and seeing it corner climbing+dumping at the end of the division finals was one of the coolest ways to lose an FRC event.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Adam,

Do you feel that 67 and 1918 should have climbed on opposite corners and if so do you think it would have turned the division elims had 1918 not fell?

I asking because as we all saw the pyrmaids were sometimes not very stable and I am wondering how shaky the co-corner climbers looked from behind the glass. Also a quick shout out for team 4814 for being an undefeated captain, winning 2 rookie awards, and forming such a great divison finals alliance on Curie.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Climbing on the corner gives you three points of contact. Two hooks on the corner rungs or gusset and the lower portion of the robot resting on the corner post. I saw many more robots fall from the face of the pyramid this year than from the corner. That being said, the higher number of robots falling from the face is probably because more teams tried climbing on the face than the corner.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

In my opinion, if you played the 2013 game competitively and still think there was a single "best" strategy for all teams, you really don't understand the game. The game featured multiple robot archetypes that all could have won the Championship with the right execution, alliance partners, and luck. The best robot for your team depends on what you could accomplish as a team. If autonomous is your strong suit, seven disc floor pickup. Mechanical wizards run your team? Climber-cycler. Are you the Cheesy Poofs? Do it all.

I believe corner climbing had less value at the mid to upper tiers of play, but at the Einstein level of play (what we'll see at IRI) it can be absolutely essential. To put it simply - this game, at its most competitive, results in both alliances being out of discs before the thirty second mark. Any "extra" points you can get (climbing, floor pickup, autonomous advantage) as well as shot accuracy will determine the outcome of the match. A cycler with a thirty point climber is far more versatile and useful than a ten point cycler for this reason.

The difference maker at IRI is going to be either these extra points, or whichever alliance makes the fewest mistakes. It'll be fun to watch.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I don't think the outcome of the division finals had anything to do with the fact that 1918 fell. They did a lot of work to get it back to being functional and it climbed in the last match. We probably would not have knocked them off if we were on opposite corners, but I don't think it changed any results.

The outcome of the Curie finals was decided when we were not able to get a clear full court shot in either F2 or F3. In F2 we completely fell apart trying to get anything done. In F3, 862 was holding their ground so well that we had to switch to cycling....at that point we were pretty much done for. Our entire strategy depended on the FCS keeping it close enough for the climbs to matter. It almost worked...

I'm sure there were more creative strategies that could have been employed given the outcome, but I haven't really explored it greatly.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Interesting you bring that up; we were considering a corner climber but were deterred because you only have 3 points of contact that aren't in a favorable position relative to your center of mass. I was afraid it wouldn't take much to knock the robot sideways into an unstable position.

The face of the pyramid felt much safer, as it's easier to keep the robot in a stable position.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

With corner climbing you have to factor in that you have to go over the corner somehow. During that process the robots lose a lot of their stability. Also if a robot is not balanced weight wise it has a tendency to twist toward to the heavier side. I would guess that less damage would occur if a robot fell from the face of the pyramid rather than the corner because the corner climbing robot is going to catch on something which could cause it flip over.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Here is an example:
http://youtu.be/AiHcLvFYA1c?t=2m20s

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Based on my team's experience (inside climber + 20pt dumper), climbing was definitely a great strategy... for getting into eliminations. Being able to climb to the top effectively was something everyone saw as extremely impressive, and it makes a team attractive to alliance members. However, with the "point cap" on climbing, it wasn't all that effective a strategy to win a competition (unless you could also shoot). When events are won by alliances with 150+ scores, even contributing 50 to the alliance with a climb+dump isn't in and of itself enough to win. I am surprised we didn't see more alliances at Champs with 2 good shooters and a climber as a third pick. That seems to be a natural combination to rack up a huge amount of points.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Sorry what I meant to emphasize was the best climbing strategy of 2013 not overall complete strategy. The only way that it could be considered for an elite strategy is if you had a shooter that could do 3-4 trips or a floor feed as well for auto mode. Sorry for the confusion.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

The center is also way easier to line up on. Our team can go from shooting to on the first bar in 2 seconds!

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Corner climbing does allow for the "stability" of a 3-point contact. However, there are some inherent problems as well (at least for some of us). The CG of the robot is never directly below the crossbar hooks, so there is always a radial component to the load on the crossbar hooks (moment load on the tower contact points). This makes the attachment inherently unstable. If you don't get a good grip on the crossbar, any subsequent movement of the tower or robot can cause hooks to come loose, rather than settle in. Not a good thing.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Does anyone know the team (with video?) that had a climber with many sets of passive hooks (fold down going over the bar, can't tip back to let go), half were fixed, and half attached to a extending mechanism. They would make short up and down movements to climb the corner, and it was honestly the coolest design I saw this season. I would guess they had 20+ hooks on the bot.

I believe they competed on newton at CMPs.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

that sounds an awful lot like nordic storm 3018
here is a video, first one on the page
http://www.nordicstorm.org/Galleries...7/Default.aspx

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Ok, so then your question boils down to: Assume we're going to climb for 30. Do we want to do it inside or outside?

Strategically, it doesn't matter unless climbing inside for 30 is common. It wasn't this year, but were that to be the case, it would be more valuable to be a corner climber.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Not true. Many climbers were painstakingly slow. It you're climbing on one of the faces you're in my way as I try and shoot and traverse the field. If you're only a 30 point climber, I'd much prefer it if you climb on the corner.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

True but when teams design their robots they need to remember to be flexible. During strategy sessions this year teams looked at us like we had 5 heads when told them we needed the back side of the pyramid to do our 30 point climb and a lot of teams would ask us if we could forgo our climb since it blocked their one and only shooting position. This of course didn't fly with us because we only needed that spot at 30-35 seconds which for most teams we encountered was only enough time for one more cycle. Yes face climbing does take up the most common shooting position this season, but in strategy teams need to be flexible because there is more than just shooting frisbees involved with the game. Shooting from the back of the pyramid is easy but my 15 second climber is also way easier from the back of the pyramid. I'm not going to take on one of the most complicated endgame strategies (corner climbing) so my partners can do another 9-12 point cycle in a match.

Now that we have had more practice we can do the front side which does give us another option but while climbing we will block shooting for a moment.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Agreed given your circumstance, but the thread is about the best climbing strategy. If I have two climbers to pick from that are exactly equal in every way (speed, alignment time ect.), I'll pick the corner climb. In theory it was the *best* climbing strategy, too bad it was so difficult. Funny how that works out.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Yeah I see where you are coming from. For me I would say the best strategy is the most reliable/fastest one. Sounds weird but I can't say which area of the pyramid I would say is the best. Our team encountered a ton of corner climbers this season and only one climber that climbed up the face like us (254). Out of all of those partners the best we ever got was two of them made it to the 20 point level. Everyone else either got stuck on level 1, barely made level 2, or couldn't even get up.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

If you have two climbers, and you are NOT a 30 point climber it doesn't matter which one you'd pick. (scarcity of 30 point climbers meant picking one up on the back half the draft was RARE) To me it would come down to reliability. If a corner climber is less stable than a face climber (that's an if, I don't know) I'd take the face climber provided all other variables were equal. More stable means less chance of it falling and breaking.



Disclaimer - yeah yeah 1640 corner climber, back half draft...

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

There are also some other teams (like 71) who climbed from the inside cronder of the pyramid. I didn't get to see them at championships. But, at midwest, it took them only a few seconds to align and the climb took about 15-20 seconds.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

How does this work? With the climber I assume the it's just viewing angle that changes.

Also, for the shooters, it's surprising to me that they'd have only one shooting position on the whole field. Was it just that the drivers that weren't confident that they could line up right from elsewhere? It seems like you could always just drive closer to the 2 pt. goals unless it was confusing a vision-based aiming system.

I guess this is true. I hadn't really though about this possibility since my team wasn't a cycler. By the way, I think that for most teams, if it takes long enough to climb that you're blocking things you probably shouldn't bother climbing.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

It depends on your robot. Our original shooter was designed with a lead screw system and vision tracking so we could shoot from anywhere on the field (hypothetically) with a few primary positions around the pyramid/mid field. Point, shoot, go.

After our original design didn't work out at GSR Week 1 we redesigned our robot. One of the sacrifices we made was change our pivot from the lead screw system to a piston. This limited us to really 3 positions for the 3pt goal (Back middle, back left, and back right). The piston worked better towards our withholding allowance because once taken off it went into the event as a COTS item whereas our original lead screw design was about 5lbs of prefabricated materials. It was also extremely easy to integrate into our design and program.

This was something a lot of teams did by keeping it simple. Unfortunately many of them only tuned in their back of the pyramid shot with little to no practice on the corners. Its not too hard but it does require more care when lining up so you are aimed at the goal and depending on how you line up you sit further away from the pyramid so for many their back of the pyramid speed may not be the same for the corner.


For our climber it really does have implications of where we start climbing. Due to the design we have a window of about 2-4 inches horizontally on the bar we need in order to fit in the top once we climb. If we transition to climbing up the side of the pyramid, we are probably only good for 20 since it is extremely hard to determine the middle of the bar from across the field perpendicular to the robot. This is why we avoid the sides. The front of the pyramid isn't too hard for us really its a matter of wasted time. If we are shooting from the back of the pyramid, we can transition from climbing to shooting in 2 seconds while we could lose 5-10 seconds going to line up at the front of the pyramid. This is also why we don't like the side faces it would take way too long to line up on.

See this video and you can see what I mean with how easy it is to line up. Since this video, our transition time has been cut in half through some fancy programming and our climb is now faster by 5 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNNEld7uBJo

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Our team, 3752 deiced to be able to do a climb. We saw it as a game decider and the hardest part of the game. Even thou we wanted a great climbing and dumping robot we didn’t want to lose the opportunity of flexibility. So climbing wasn’t the most important part of the game but it posed an amazing opportunity to test anyone’s design capabilities. Climbing was merely an opportunity to put up a lot of points (theoretically), that theory was demolished early on when some teams were putting up 68ish points with just disks.

As I am biased to my teams design I have to say that our middle climb was a lot more stable than most teams that tried to climb. We only ever fell of one time, and it was then we bumped bumpers at the top of the pyramid with another teams and we got stuck. Out dump bucket hit the 30 point bar and pushed up off just far enough to unhook one of our climbing hooks. On the upside we did a graceful 360 off the top and only fractured 2 wheels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69inPiS0Om4
This is what it looked like when it was working properly; At St. Joe regional.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I feel that if the magnetic wheel was more widely attempted and used (the one team that made it work to a degree of obvious general knowledge being 118), some teams would have found ways to make it much faster than the corner climbers that used hooks. Unfortunately, 118 found that it was more beneficial for them to shoot instead of climb to the 3rd level, so they never used their level 3 climber, and I believe they also took it off (don't quote me on that one). However, if the approach to climbing using a magnetic wheel was more used, I think it would have become the most popular method to be integrated into robots that wanted to level 3 climb mid competition season. But the again as we have all seen, there weren't even any level 3 climbs on Einstein, therefore climbing in any degree was proven to not be the best strategy for Ultimate Ascent. The highest climb there was on Einstein was 148's level 2 climb, which the additional 20 points, while greatly helping their score, was not too great in its value because of the extreme scoring abilities of some of the other robots on Einstein. I really would have liked to see the climbing point values upgraded/modified so that climbing to level 3 was worth doing. I find it rather depressing that the hardest challenge FIRST has ever presented was heavily under valued, to the point where in most divisional elimination matches, climbing was rather scarce.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

1640 was a 30 point climber.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

What Andrew said. We did it on Einstein, and actually won our first semi first semi by less than 31 points (23, 199-176). Our alliance would not have won a match on Einstein without it, and the 20 we got the next match would've made it close if 303 hadn't broken (revised to 200-225).

Also realize that though we were the last standing, there were several greats in divisional elims. 1114 and 1986 and others didn't give up the climb, it just didn't quite go their way. Not a terrible surprise*, as you say it's the hardest challenge in the history of FIRST. While more teams attempting it would have increased the probability of more climbers advancing farther, you're already talking about some of the best teams in the league. It also would have meant fewer floor pickups (1986 notwithstanding), and I have to say, personally I'm much more awed by a 90 point autonomous than a couple 30 point climbs...thank you Michigan for giving me the opportunity to compare the two, though I may be biased by winning Newton and MAR by the arms of 3476 and 2590's pickups.

What I don't get - 118 took their climber off because it did not meet there time spec. (Ours didn't at Worlds either. It worked out, but Chestnut Hill was much better.) That's why it made more sense to shoot instead; we did the same for much of the season. I'm not sure I understand why you're evidencing a method that was attempted and discarded as unworkable/not worth it* by one of the best teams in FIRST as something more teams should have done, and would have done successfully. Of course, that spec would have changed if the climb was worth more...see above. I wouldn't have complained about more points, though I suspect the GDC underestimated disc scores rather than overestimated climbs.

*Absolutely zero offense meant. Our climb worked a grand total of 3 days this season (1 at Chestnut Hill). It just happened to be the right 3 days. 1114 and 1986 were much, much, much more reliable.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

We actually score more in the last 20 seconds climbing than we do shooting frisbees.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

I'm not sure I've seen anyone make 30 points in the last 20 seconds any other way. (Note the last 20 seconds, because if you're an FCS--or really anyone going that fast--you should be out of discs by now at that rate. ;)) We can run about a 20 second cycle at best, going direct with no offensive defense hits. Even clocking just under 30 seconds, the climb is worth it. Otherwise, we get away with longer than that because the alliance is/will run out of discs. (Thanks 303 and 3476.)

118 said the best they had was 30-45sec range. We'd pull it off too, particularly if we wanted the weight elsewhere.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

Probably an FCS or an extremely fast cycler could come close but there are a lot of variables. Someone just barely getting in your way could ruin it.

This was one of our best matches of the season. 5 cycles and a climb. one missed disc and we only loaded 3 frisbees during the last cycle since we really wanted the climb! This climb is a little on the slow side for us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYRZM...7J7Q& index=2

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

If left unblocked, our FCS can empty the feeder stations in about 40 seconds.
In several of our qualification matches we ran out of frisbees and had 60 seconds to load up with colored discs and go climb for our 20 climb + 20 dump.
However there have been instances that we were blocked well enough that we couldn't get anything to the goal until ~45 seconds to go, in which case we began shooting.

It really depends on how much quality defense is being played.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

We experienced something like this at Battlecry this past weekend. The #1 alliance was captained by team 195 The Cyberknights and the #2 alliance by 1519 Mechanical MAYHEM. Both of these teams are extremely accurate full court shooters.

During the finals, 1519 used their blocker to prevent 195 from scoring across the field and when 195 transitioned to cycling 1519 stayed hard on their tail. This is one of the reasons the BC finals were so tight was that even though both alliances could put up close to 200 points the defense played by one FCS to another took a lot of points out of the game.

Re: Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?
 

30 in 20 is doable, it's just a very perfect storm scenario to be able to do it but not actually manage it until the last 20 seconds. Comm loss and regain, defense that breaks down or is finally countered, etc. If they're mobile, the FCS was probably doing something else for most of the match rather than burning 100 seconds.

Of course, the alternative is (legally and ethically) drawing 2 technical fouls somehow. I've definitely seen that one. You could also somehow manage to block 30+ opposing climb points or 10 discs (that'd be a sight), but otherwise you're not "trading" much for a 30pt 20-30sec climb if you're out of discs.

Epic video.