Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Oh don't get me wrong, lone star had some MAJOR and BRUTAL defense being played. If it hadn't been for some last second saves, we would have been flipped multiple times (luckily it never happened). And yes we are still good friends with everyone, I would be disappointed in anyone that is holding grudges against defense bots, it is part of the game (unless the team was being excessively brutal).

But I still believe that a drive train repeatedly slamming into the ground from almost 2 feet high with a 120 pounds (not including battery) on top of it, is much more stressful on a bot.

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

2 feet high? Falling from scaled position? Thanks

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Oops, meant to say 1 foot (flying off of the cheval de frise). And also another source of impact is ramming into that rockwall.

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Ah... Yes the cheval de frise. I know some teams with the prefect pressure in their pneumatic wheel would fly a foot high off the rock wall. Did any teams ever get beat up by hitting the portcullis up really fast and it slamming back down on them? But yeah, the defensed definitely have done drive trains a beating

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

I don't think I've ever seen a portcullis "slam" down, I personally slowed down to like 25 percent speed when going under the portcullis, so it never had that momentum. (I'm a brutal driver... thank god we had an unbreakable drive train :P) when our bot hit that rock wall at full speed (never measured but estimated to be over 25 ft/sec) the front end would easily get 1.5 feet in the air, and the back (battery is on the back) would get 1 foot in the air

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

There were some really intense fights over resources. Our intake basically needs to be completely rebuilt for St. Louis. Going after that rebound in your own court yard can get competitive....

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Dozer is back this year. Check out the 1:00 mark of 319's reveal video. You can also see us in St. Louis this year.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D9aeWRQLmUY&autoplay=1

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

YES..we build durable bots..this year we broke eight times

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

We're spoiled by years of flat field games with no obstacles. People have gradually been moving their drivetrains closer and closer to the margins of strength assuming every game would have 4" wheels, simple obstacles, not jumping over things, etc. and this game threw all of that away. As a result, 16T sprockets, 25 chain drives, etc. are failing everywhere and people are saying the game is rough, when really the designs didn't adjust for the rigors of the game.

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

None of these three decisions are bad in a vacuum this year, but when it rains, it pours.

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Most brutal game I've seen in my 15 years of doing FIRST. The field is breaking robots while robots are breaking the field and now robots are starting to break each other. It's gonna get worse in St. Louis. Alot worse!

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Unfortunate. When we were building our drive train, more than half the team called us "stupid" for spending so much time securing everything and implementing backup systems, (for example if one bolt breaks, there were 3 more supporting it). We were one of the very few bots that didn't break down at either of our events.

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Luckily, the only broken parts we had were this gear and a bent piece of 1x1 angle. That being said, this game is brutal to robots. Around the same time we had the bent angle incident, our hex shaft for the intake slipped out of it's collars and bearings after another robot hit us so we drove around for a match with it hanging in the robot.

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

Our robot got demolished (exadriateing a little) our first comp we broke 5 chains over several matches, one whole side at one point. Our POT mount for our arm broke 2 times, our cam bus got disconnected during a match. our roll cage got rolled up on by another bot in the quarter finals, our orange light mount got completely meshed up. our wheel trusses got bent like crazy, (one was in a 's' shape). our shooter ball guiders got bend ever flipping match, we lost our camera during our semi match (we didn't need it though) and our support bracket that tied our robots frame at the front, got bent so it looked like this ||__|| --> //__\\ or \\__// ( ||,\\, // ) 'are the wheel sides of the robot'

Re: Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?
 

The difficulty with this particular game stems more from the fact that teams' institutional memory of games before RR has failed. AA was rougher in robot-to-robot interaction, while Stronghold is rougher in terms of vertical drops and robot-to-field interaction. RR taught new students that FRC robots could be lightly built and survive, which is one of the longer lasting shames about that game.