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[MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
Previous years are located:
MCC2015 MCC2014 It contains the links to even other previous years. Here we go: Each year I am amazed by what teams come up with to compete in FRC. Teams have a ton of wonderful ideas and some even see good execution of those ideas. I would like this thread to focus on the "Minimum Competitive Concept" for a robot for 2016. It is often easy to identify all the possible tasks you could have a robot do. Prioritizing those tasks, and realizing it in the form of a competitive robot is in my opinion much more impressive. If you haven't watched the Simbotics Strategy Presentation, please do before responding to this thread. Especially review the "Golden Rules 1&2". Assumptions are that one of the primary goals of the MCC is to play in elims (not necessarily win on Einstein), and your team has mid-pack to lower fabrication resources. Please list your assumptions, strategy to seed high, estimate of a winning score, and what robot design elements would achieve this score. I personally usually assume for this thread that the goal is to seed high enough to be either a Alliance Captain or a pretty early pick. I would appreciate this year if we kept towards that philosophy. I request you do this exercise first, and then you may want to see what the excellent folks from WCP & Vexpro brought to the table. |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
For this year, I would say that the goals for an MCC robot would be as follows:
Can do Low Bar, Portcullis, both Category B, both Category D defenses, and assistance for Category C defenses. Scoring in the Low Goal. Cross in Auto for most Defenses, reach for other Defenses. Park on batter for contributing to the Capture. Robot requirements: Some sort of "active" boulder intake (Similar to 2010 ones) WCD or 8 wheel drop with 6" pneumatic wheels Low static wedges to force Portcullis up Match strategy: Auto: Cross defense with ball for 10pt Auto Teleop: Focus on quick breach of the defenses, while also scoring occasional low goal to help assist in weakening of tower. If paired with two high goal shooters, while breaching defenses also help by ferrying boulders across defense and giving the scoring robots an ample supply or boulders. End game: Quick score of any left over boulders in the courtyard in Low Goal if there is still 1 health on tower, then park on Batter for Capture. The strategy during Elims would be that the two other robots are the main scoring robots, while our MCC robot breaches defenses and helps feed balls to the slower 2nd pick shooter. Ideally the 1st draft will be able to assist in the breaching but focus on boulder cycles. During Alliance selections, the priority is to pick up a high goal scoring robot that can also help damage other defenses. Then, the second pick would be a slower shooter who hopefully has a scaling mechanism. Reasonings: Obviously this robot is built more to play the RP system than it is to play the Game itself. Which I think is perfectly okay for a team to set out to do. I would say that it is a reasonable assumption that each robot on an alliance during Qualifications can score ~3 boulders (40 second cycles), and with this robot focusing on breaching defenses, it would be able to get 3-4 RP each match and seed high. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While a bit more advanced than the MCC, I believe that 1296's Mittens designed a good example of an MCC robot for this year, and that the high goal scoring capability would be something that a robot could reasonably add over time during the season (And a must have for Championships), even if it isn't exactly the pneumatic cannon that Full Metal ran. |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
Assume: RPs from breaching and capturing are important (they'll get ya 20 and 25 points later)
Assume: Early-season event (there's a slightly different assumption for a later-season event) Assume: Everybody (else) goin' low bar Requirements: --A/B/D obstacles --Visibility from far end of field --C obstacles from Courtyard --Boulder Handling (Low Goal) Nice to Have: --Activate C obstacles from Neutral Zone --Low Bar capability --Hanging The plan: Drive over defenses B/D (25 points if one is done in auto), execute the spin move on the Sally Port (or the equivalent on the drawbridge--10 points), pick off any remaining low bars (10 points), possibly tackle the A defense if there isn't anything left (10 points) and go park on the batter (5 points). If possible, take a boulder each trip to feed others or shove in low goal (2 or 5 points per trip, 5-6 trips easily). I figure that's 1 RP and up to about 60 points/match solo, which would give a high chance of a match win when combined with partners' scoring. For early-season events, that strategy can rack up some serious points. Can't really argue with a full breach done quickly and a ferry-bot. FRC2637 is a prime example (they're the small red-bot)--this was after their finalist run in San Diego (and resulting Wild Card). They had a couple of specialist mechanisms for A and C defenses (though in the match shown, they didn't use 'em on C). When everybody's breaching in later-season events, the focus will need to be more towards delivering boulders to the tower. But that's something to tune in. |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
If I was with a relatively new team with limited resources, I would make a robot that only goes under the low bar and score up close high goals with a pneumatic catapult. May not rank the highest but would be a solid pick by a lot of alliances.
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Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
I'd like to offer up Team 5811, BONDS Robotics from Ohio as this year's MCC.
http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/5811 5811 had an intake and a decent drivetrain. They could score up to 6 low goals in a match, and could cross most of the defenses that mattered. They were the 7th alliance captain at their first event, upsetting the 2 seed and winning Rookie All-Star. They were the second selection of the 8th alliance captain at their second event, almost upsetting the #1 seed in three close matches. They competed in the Hopper Division, and were very high on our picklist for third and fourth robots. |
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Requirements (rough priority order):
1. Durable design that survives matches (minimal radio reboots, brownouts, thrown chains, stripped gears, tipping, etc). 2. Can challenge tower 3. Capable of crossing terrain defenses in tele-op 4. Capable of acquiring and spitting out boulders 5. Capable of crossing terrain defenses in autonomous 6. Capable of crossing low bar in tele-op 7. Capable of crossing low bar in autonomous 8. Capable of crossing category A defenses in tele-op Differentiating factors (how to stand out compared to other similar bots): 1. Low goal autonomous 2. Category A autonomous 3. Robot visibility past category C defenses 4. Shot blocking device 5. Predictable/controllable positioning after autonomous crossings 6. Autonomous routines with delays |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
There are several different robot designs this year that meet this criteria, I think.
Ultimately, the robot needs to do the following: - Cross two defenses a match regardless of the configuration on the field (both defenses of one category + the low bar should do it) - Pick up balls and score them in the low goal - Stay on the batter - Push I do think you need a pickup to be consistently competitive. You can win events without one but you won't consistently seed well. This robot can seed #1 with some luck (or the ability to cross more than 3 of the 9 defenses). |
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Being a on a rookie team with only freshmen and sophomores, we really had to find the most simple robot that we would be able to build in 6 weeks. We decided to go with a low goal/ resupply robot. The chassis is an AMU14 with the 8 in. pneumatic upgrade kit. The intake and shooter was a spinning pool noodle. And that's pretty much it for functionality.
We seeded 15th at SVR, and won rookie all-star, then seeded 68th in Curie and was chosen by the 4th alliance as backup. (shout out to 5803, 3310 and 2168). I don't our robot could be competitive on Einstein but it was probably one of, if not the simplest robot that I saw at CMP. 5940's TBA page: http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/5940 |
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I think 1257's 2016 robot exemplifies the minimum competitive concept for this year. To quote one of the other mentors, "we do all the easy things really well":
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Team 836, the RoboBees, did the MCC this year.
- Ridiculously fast and agile drive train - Durable, reliable over-bumper intake - Intake also served as a Class A manipulator - Robot was extra short to facilitate going under the low bar at speed - Low Goal autonomous was very consistent for an extra 5 points Primary Roles - District Events: Breach, Low Goal - District Champs: Breach, and Low Goal better than anyone else - World Champs: Breach, sometimes Low Goal, sometime Feed. Easily the best feeder bot I saw. They did 9 low goals in their first Qual match. |
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Add a quick ball intake/discharge for low goals, at most events you can seed in the top 8. Last is driver practice. Practice practice practice. Two teams with identical drive trains but differing drive experience preform drastically different. Lack of robot features can be compensated with lots of practice. |
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At champs we had one match where we scored 6 low goals while being disconnected for 40 seconds of the match, and still another where we scored 7 low goals while carrying the breach for our alliance (I think 5 or 6 out of the 8 crosses). I'm convinced we could have scored more than 7 if the right situation presented itself. But seriously, thank you for the mention, but I think we slightly exceeded the criteria for an MCC. We kinda set out to build an MCC this season with our goal of making playoffs at both our regional events. We ended up over-shooting the MCC by a bit with surprise ability to cross the portcullis and auto routines for crossing 3 unique classes of defenses rather consistently. But overall I'd say we're a fairly close example. |
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I'd like to also show off my team's robot (Team 5150) as an example of the MCC for this year. Simple, cheap, and robust were our objectives for the season. Total cost was a little over $1,000 which allowed us to have a practice bot and a competition bot. We had a drivetrain that went through many iterations to find the best option as well as an accessory arm that acted as a ball intake, anti-tortuga arm, and the class A defense manipulator. We were able to cycle fast low goals. (8 a match.) As well as act as a defender at MSC eliminations and Newton eliminations. We were 1st alliance captain at Kettering #1, 4th alliance captain at MSC, and 5th alliance captain at CMP in the Newton division.
Check out the event details here: http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/5150 Check out more of the robot and get in touch with us here: http://hybridhornets.weebly.com/robots.html |
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This was basically the goal for 3005 as well.
Our robot was a chain in tube, 8WD pneumatic drivetrain, with a dual roller intake on one side and a single roller intake on the other. We could easily breach all the defenses (including a sally port spin and drawbridge if we had to drive over, tap, drive back). By champs, we could cycle 6-8 low goal boulders per match. We were #2 seed of ~60 at Alamo, and the #2 AC and regional finalists. We were #2 seed at Dallas of ~45, but ended up out in SF due to a couple alliance issues. At champs, we were #7 seed in Curie, and ended up leading that alliance to the Curie finals, missing out on Einstein by 2 points in one match, and 1 point in another. The keys were recognizing the opportunity early in our season, getting a second bot built for the first time to get a huge amount of driver practice, and a focus on absolute reliability and scouting. We never missed a match, lost comms, or had a major component failure that wasn't fixed in 10 minutes or less. Link to Youtube video of robot |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
So we are looking for minimum competitive concept. 4 wheel 8 or 10 inch pneumatic tires. 4 cim drive geared around 8 ft/s. (With MCC you get agile or fast, but not both). A fast intake capable of squirting the ball in the low goal. Intake could be a combination of wheels and pneumatics. A simple arm actuator for the category A defenses. This could almost be assembled with KOP and first choice parts. especially for a second year team.
With this you could breach by yourself if you had to. Score a low goal autonomous fairly consistently. Break the tower with a little help (and pick up the extra RP). This would you get picking at most districts & regionals. To win in eliminations you would need the help of a high goal capable robot on your alliance. (Add good scouting to the list) |
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Reading through this thread, I would say that our robot perfectly fits this bill. We made the trade off of crossing defenses and quick low goals for shooting and hanging, but sacrificed high goal shooting. Although it was effective (we qualified and advanced through michigan state finals, and finished as an 8th alliance captain at worlds), we are hoping to have a high goal shooter operational by our first offseason competition.
Although clearly effective, it does show that we need to push ourselves. I feel like that as a team as old as ours, we should be able to accomplish more than the minimum level of competitiveness, consistently, no matter how many seniors we lose, or any other circumstances that fall on us |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
Our robot was basically an MCC. We kept it simple, super robust (it never broke down!), and practiced as much as we could.
KOP chassis upgraded to 6 8" pneumatic wheels. Built narrow to go over half the ramparts without catching on the other half (this turned out to be a key design decision)! Low bar capable. "Roll cage" and Lexan cover to protect innards and drive under portcullis. Capable of going over rock wall, rough terrain, and moat. Single arm wheeled shooter to intake/shoot balls. Designed for low goal (theoretically could have done high goal with some refinement, but we didn't get this reliable enough to use - only 50% successful) Arm mechanism also capable of handling the cheval de frise and the portcullis. Cameras for vision tracking in auto and for driver station display. Multiple autonomous modes (low bar low goal with and without vision, reach any defense, cross ground defense quickly, cross ground defense slowly, cross cheval de frise, cross portcullis, do nothing) No climber. No mechanisms for sally port or drawbridge. We practiced, practiced, practiced variations on cycles including quickly breaching, quickly grabbing boulders to deposit into the courtyard, and doing full cycles of low goals. This was good enough to make 6th and 5th alliance captain at GTRC and North Bay, which I call a great success for our first year! |
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Our goal at the beginning of the season was to qualify for MSC and we felt we could do that with our team resources (mentors, students, time, money) by building a very competitive MCC robot and were not disappointed [Team 1114 presentation makes this point about carefully evaluating your resources] FRC3548, RoboRavens2, built a MCC robot that successfully became #3 captain at SOuthfield and then selected by #1 captain, 3604, to win the event with our sister team, FRC1188, who also built a MCC robot. At our second FiM event at Livonia, after a few rounds of alliance captain picking each other, we found ourselves as captain of alliance#8. Our sister team, 1188, chose us as their first pick. From this perspective I think the students considered our season very successful especially after we qualified for MSC and the World Championship at St. Louis. One of the major things different this year was how much the KOP chassi had to change in order to be an effective MCC robot (our view). What normally takes us only two weeks to complete took us four weeks this year. Modifications to the KOP chassis included the pneumatic upgrade kit from AM, the AM front wedge plate, VEX Pro 13t CIM gear, 50 tooth trans gear swap, and new belts to go with the VEX 60T belt pulleys. We needed to resize our KOP by reducing it by one inch in order to accommodate the belt and pulleys. As an experienced coach I know that our 10 student member team will peak at about 500 hours in the six week build period. As such, not having a shooter to reuse "off the shelf" or a climber "off the shelf" made those two items very low on the wish list. We are considering those off season projects at the present time. One the great things about successfully competing and successfully completing a MCC robot is that the team is not stretched to its absolute limits the whole season long. This allows the coaches, students and mentors to smile and enjoy the entire season a whole lot more. This is an important element in retaining and attracting students, mentors and coaches for the next year. |
Re: [MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
Going for those non-zero-sum ranking points was essential.
Essential items:
Plus three or more of these:
Above MCC, but great for WINNING regionals:
There were a number of drive systems that were workable (tank tread, pneumatic wheels, and many solid wheels). The best all-around manipulator concept was the popular intake wheels at the end of a long arm that could extend over the bumpers, hold the boulder, and feed it back out. With a little careful design, this same arm could operate the CDF and portcullis. Some sort of side rails or other system (e.g. built into the pickup arm) to make going under the portcullis a clean run is also needed. |
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I'm not saying under any circumstances that an MCC robot cannot be competitive, but I am saying that we need to push ourselves further than we did this year. We have so many advantages over newer teams, and yet we find ourselves falling short last year and this year. We get custom punched sheet metal from Russels Technical Products, in any metal we want. We have a warehouse from which we work, upon which we pay no overhead. We have an array of mentors from every field imaginable, and yet... You guys spent 4 weeks building a competitive robot out of the KOP base. We spent as long trying to get our bases designed. We had the luxury of having 3 bases custom made to our specifications this year, and our arm as well, and instead of using this as the advantage that it was, we leaned on it as a crutch. We had all this free time, and yet, when confronted with regearing a gear box, or progressing beyond our first high goal shooting prototype, our build lead looked me straight in the eye and said it was too much work. As soon as we had preliminary arm designs done, our design team stopped showing up at the building. We have work to do, and i and several other students plan on implementing it. In that sense, this year helped us identify the many, many shortcomings that we had, but it was still disappointing to say the least, especially knowing how much untapped potential our team has. |
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I think 1710 had a really good example of an MCC bot this year. We were low, able to cross all defenses but the drawbridge independently, only shot low goals, and had a solid intake. We even scored a boulder in auto. In Newton we were able to rank 20th. Here are some example matches from champs.
Quals 57 Quals 118 |
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I'll throw in 5699, they were rank 5, 3rd alliance captain and semifinalists at GTRC with this bot https://www.facebook.com/RoboSapiens...2875678545176/
We helped them plan their strategy this year and our goal for them was to build a MCC robot. Because of their simple design they were able to complete there robot by week 4 and practice for the remaining 2 weeks of the build season. They were one of the few (only?) robots this year with an active blocking mechanism |
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I think a team I mentored earlier in the season fits the minimum competitive robot bill. 5632's capabilities included:
Breaching Solo every match. Which they did 100% of the time in quals matches. (Only missed one all season, if you include Elims, we had one major mechnical failure in a match that could have been fixed pre-match but the student captain didn't want to.) Low Goaling / Ball Ferrying to the Courtyard. Moved > 5 balls a match. We literally took a PVC frame that dropped down over the bumper and bolted an andymark intake kit with some Vex Pro mechanum wheels to the front of it to achieve this. Scaling. Unfortunately they missed the cutoff for GA district points to go to worlds by 2 spots or so. Had I been able to keep working with them at the GA state CMP they might have gotten to Worlds. |
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Fact - at most early events (by which I mean before week, say, 6?) you could seed high with a favorable schedule and a reliable drivetrain. Don't need to TOUCH a ball. Like, ever. So for me, a MCC (which I usually define as a robot that will play in eliminations) consists of nothing more than a drive base capable of clearing the passive defenses. A portculis/cdf arm pneumatically driven would have been wonderful but not minimum. |
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Throwback to an incredibly old article about the subject. |
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Actually, here's one for y'all. 6220, rookie robot out of SoCal. Drivetrain (small), and depending on when you look (read: quals/elims), maybe has a pool-noodle blocker aboard. B/D defenses, C with some help. Last pick at O.C. (Week 5), won event on defense(s). |
[MCC] Minimum Competive Concept 2016
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Team 449 had a single wedge for both cheval and portcullis (granted pneumatically positioned, and still wasn't strong enough to hold the cheval plank down, but port was a piece of cake - easier than lowbar IMO. My favorite auto to tell alliance partners about, passive port). we also used gravity to drop another mechanism, our intake, so itd stay within our frame perimiter before auto, but then drop to a manipulation position during auto. |
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I think 1466 built something closer to the MCC. There was no intake, didn't manipulate boulders except when driving over them, but could clear all the defenses quickly and breach independently. We were able to seed high enough to be the 5th alliance captain at SMR in week 5. There are a number of lessons I think we learned that could have improved the robot design. I'm still not convinced, though, that an intake was necessary to play in elims if your drivetrain is reliable and drivers have had a lot of practice time. I do wish we'd added additional capabilities to the robot, but resources were somewhat limited and the focus was on playing in eliminations. I don't know how many teams out there were alliance captains at regionals without manipulating boulders, but my guess would be that we were not alone in that.
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An even simpler robot I'd present as an MCC would be 5240, Udder Chaos from Potsdam, NY. 5240 was a rhino tracks drivetrain with a big gap in their front bumper with an intake/outtake of sorts inside that was built specifically to do low goals. They seeded top 8 at both TVR and FLR because all they did was put balls into the low goals every single match. I think they topped out at 7 once. They couldn't manipulate the CDF or Portcullis (although that didn't stop them from trying) |
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I think an MCC for getting picked at every event this year was an intake + pneumatic catapult that went under the low bar. Teams could install a flashlight or put crosshairs on a camera and have reliable shooting without having to run any control loops. It was made easier by 'Snow Problem presenting an RI3D video.
Team 41 is a great example of this. |
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True MCC
Low Bar Low Goal Class B/D obstacles Practice |
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+Autonomous crossing Without those two, I don't think you fit the criteria. |
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You can have the best personal trainers, an indoor gym, and access to every NBA game video ever taken, but if you don't practice dribbling, passing, catching, and getting into position.... who cares how well you shoot. Finish early, drive the wheels off of it, fix it and drive it some more. Most teams would be better served with 10 hours of practice than 100 hours of fiddling with some sort of do-hickey... Ever notice the improvement at a competition between Match 1 and the finals with a team (especially the 3rd)? At a district, that is 12 matches during qualifying, and maybe an additional 6 during QFs and SFs. IE, giving the driver less than an hour of additional competitive operation makes a noticeable improvement. Imagine what 10 hours could do.... |
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