How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

How does your team acquire totes

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

We can do both pretty well...

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

There's really only one correct answer.

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

In our case we treat single Totes and RC's as objects and as such we can pick up any object in any orientation just the same... upside down, angled doesn't matter.

Totes specifically we can control TWO at a time as long as they are side by side longways or horizontally as in the landfill pattern... then we can place both on near platform and quickly create a double-stack..rinse repeat.

At door we can create double stack equally quickly...control first second automatic stack...move score rinse repeat OR get first tote grab can get noodle human drops second tote and score (2tote+Rc+litter 18pts) still fast maybe stack that on existing stack.

So we designed our robot to be versatile..it really can do most anything to score it needs to in any possible game match scenario well...effective scoring regardless of situation. Mainly because we don't need a specific position arrangement to manipulate objects....we have finesse too to move an object slightly if needed.

So we could go all game doing a ton of mini stacks that score. If we wanted 4 x10, 12, 14 ? but run out of platform space.

BUT there are more multiplication points for topping higher stacks with RC+noodle (more efficient increasing score), we handle that quickly as a topper robot. We could noodle top all stacks with RC that we had on our side of field at any height.

AND co-op points YEP we can get all three GOLD quick (more efficient increasing score) and easily stack on wall as a wall co-op robot to gain both alliances 40 doing most of that work.

So we decided rather than do ONE thing "GREAT" do instead "Everything Very Well" because of the nature of the changing game itself and the messy field that was our main overriding design decision..so while I am a bit jelly of those creating 6-stacks sideways RC on top internally..thats all they do well usually and most don't have noodle scoring too...plus many I've seen lose a multiple level with sideways RC. They cannot wall stack usually.

I really like our versatility and speed. We are banking on speed/versatility kills in Recycle Rush....we are aiming to go to St Louis if we guessed correctly as a winning alliance member. Don't see too many robots like us..good to have that uniqueness...thats what got us to St Louis last year as a blocker.

As to previous comment "only one correct answer" I disagree..it just as fast to grab two landfill as door if your robot is designed to handle both scenarios and is fast at movement and stacking.

So I did not vote in the poll as do both was not an answer. Totes are important for multiplier action do yes totes matter a lot.

All comes down to what is max score each match in 2:15 and that's going to change match to match.

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

We built for the landfill, anticipating this (on kickoff day) to be the harder challenge. We have a 24" wide "rake" of about 20 spring-loaded 10-32 bolts that we will use to grab the side lip of totes (long end preferred) or RCs. We can grab a single RC or short-end-grab two totes in the same level, or we can carry/stack a much taller stack of totes on the long end (we have done six, but plan to top out at 4 totes or 2 totes + RC in game play, unless we run out of RCs). If we draw HP station, I suspect there is a location we can stand that will make the totes fall upright; this is why we're working hard to get through inspection early enough to play some practice matches for the first time in our four years. We will work out some positions based on our plywood station, but we do not really expect the same performance from the actual field.

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

Be that as it may. I just have one question for you, though... Chute door?

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

Yes sorry left out chute ...

Just as fast to grab two from landfill and stack score as it is to get two from chute door human player... only advantage to human station is if there is a RC close its not much more time to grab get human to insert a noodle and second tote stacked there on the first. that's 18 pts versus 4. So great option if RC is close.

We like to use a combo move. Get two from landfill quickly stack in scoring position... go the HP get 1 tote + nearby RC + noodle+ another tote and stack that on original 2 for 30 pts.... if we can convince another robot to do a two stack in the meantime on our original two-stack that's instead the full 42 pts (6+RC+Noodle). Plus time left for co-op wall 40 pts and other scores like RC+noodle toppers on other robot stacks. We can get that 30/42 in under a minute. then the wall stack in co-op say 45 seconds and still have 30 seconds to top other stacks with RC's to multiply those assuming other robots managed to create some stacks. Could be well over 100 pts if done correctly every time with little involvement from alliance partners...more if they are active tall stackers. All a matter of being efficient.

Re: How does your team primairly acquire totes?
 

From the beginning, our design team decided to go for the totes from the chute door, but we recently made a modification to the robot that allows it to pick up two totes if they are side-by-side as they would be in the landfill.