Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Now that the 2016 season is over, I’d like to ask the Chief Delphi community the question:

Knowing what you now know of this year’s game and how it plays out, on a qualification level, elimination level, regional/district level, and championship level, would you still have chosen to design your robot either to the constraints of the low bar or ignoring the low bar entirely?

Looking back to these threads towards the beginning of the season: Low Bar and Terrifying Karthik, we saw what was to some a surprisingly high ratio of low to tall robots, almost 9:1. Now looking at Einstein, seven of the thirty-two robots were not low bar capable, a rough ratio of 4:1 low to tall. The same ratio holds true for the champion alliance. We also saw a couple alliances like Newton’s winning alliance where only one bot on the field was low bar capable. For that alliance in particular, both the captain and first pick (217 and 3476) were tall. Our alliance in the Newton elims also had only one low bot (67) on the field at a time. For most alliances, only one robot would actually be cycling through the low bar in a match.

In the thread: First seed alliance captain: Low Bar or not? We saw that there were rarely any tall bots seeding first at the end of the qualification matches. At champs three of the eight first seed alliance captains were not low bar capable: 1241, 1501, and 973. 3481 came close in Bayou, seeding second by the difference of one RP. Though we saw many advantages to going tall: easier to design for the batter shot, easier for three students to CAD without access to a CNC or mechanical engineering mentors, and visibility of robot over defenses at all times, we were also confronted with its disadvantage. At Hub City we were not paired with an alliance partner that was low bar capable until our last qualification match of the first day. This lead to a lower accumulation of RP and therefor a lower seed. We learned that the advantages of being tall don’t really come into play until regional elims or champs.

Many low robots were also faced with the challenge, as largely discussed in the thread: Your tall opaque robot is now illegal, of having their cameras blocked by taller bots. For some, this was a serious issue and for others like 1986 this was just another problem that needed to be solved. Though I’m not sure if they eventually implemented this at champs.

IMO teams that approached the low bar correctly were teams like 16, 67, 971, 1678, and 330 who have, as our coaches like to call, transformer bots, changing from a low bot to a tall bot once inside the coutyard. I feel as though my team, with its limitations, made the correct decision in designing a tall bot this year. But that’s just my two cents. What do you all think? Would you hop in a time machine and stop your team from going with a low design or a tall design?

TL;DR read above.

Thank you for your time,

-JoaquinC, H.P.

Terminology: low = low bar capable; tall = not low bar capable

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

No, it wasn't worth it. I would have much preferred to have an extra 6" of height.

C'est la vie.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Not worth. We overestimated our knowledge and design capability. If I were to redo this season, I'd have us go tall.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

If you asked me this week 5 or 6 I would have said no, but I'm glad we went under the low bar for a few reasons:

- Forced a low CG; it would have been very easy to build a tall and flippable robot without the low bar forcing us down to a certain height

- Forced design compromise; trying to shoot high and hang from the beginning would have resulted in our team overshooting and failing to complete either objective well. The low bar basically took hanging off the table for us.

- Provided an alternate path to the courtyard if something on the drive was starting to break and we didn't want to risk getting stuck.

Ultimately, the low bar was a great addition to the game, even for teams that didn't successfully go under it. I think it saved the game from being like 2010, with lots of bad robots that flipped a lot.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

If I had known how many low bots would be around this season, I most definitely would have opted to be a tall bot. IMO, the only true advantage of having a low bot was being able to do the low bar. It made the shots super easy to block, and it was hard to keep track of where your robot was on the field, especially if there was a sally port/drawbridge on the field. It seems like the teams that did a fantastic job of pulling it off(1241, 2471) were able to do every other defense on the field, while having the advantage of shooting from a higher point. The only disadvantage was the higher COG, but it seems like most tall bots handled it well.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

It's a tough call, but overall I would say no.

On the one hand, we did cycles through the low bar since it was easy to pick up boulders from the secret passage/human player.

On the other hand, the size constraints and our bot design limited us to the point that we would have had to give up our low bar capabilities to climb. Like I said before though we were a low bar bot, so the tradeoff of climbing vs changing our entire strategy up before CMP wasn't worth it.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Totally worth it in more ways than just one.

Things learned from designing for the LB:
- Subsystem Lay-out Packaging
- How to design smaller and more compact in general
- Low CG made tipping virtually a non-issue

Things gained from designing for the LB:
- Ability to guarantee a Breach when paired with a good drive(huge for Elims)
- Fast cycle times from SP to Courtyard via the Low Bar
- Autonomous mode that didn't have to compensate for the other defenses

It might have been tough at first, but there are huge benefits considering blocked shots only became an issue later on into an event or in eliminations (where we still weren't worried about it because our alliance partners at OC were tall).

Overall, I would still have an LB-Bot if I were to do Stronghold all over again.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

No, the low bar wasn't worth all of the broken arm gearboxes. :eek:

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

The low bar was kinda worth it for us and ill explain.

At first glance we chose the low bar for the quick cycle times and easy crossing. It forced our designs to be cheaper (less material usage) and made a low cog and light robot easier to obtain.

My favorite advantage however is not competitive at all.

My favorite thing is that our robot fit inside normal sized cars. Allowing our team to go all over practicing and now doing demos without having to ask for the school truck. As we transition to trying to become a chairmans team having a small robot that is extremely easy to transport is going to help a lot.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

NO!


And I wish my team listened to me.:(

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Yes. We had fast climber, averaged about 6 high goals at champs, (partly because we could fly under the low bar to get more). And we were 5 points away from Einstein. I can't think of much we would have done different.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

So much truth. Probably the first and last robot that will easily fit in my hatchback. Traveling 6 miles to play practice matches was a no-brainer.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

See also this thread.

To summarize: IMO, yes.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it
 

Nothing really related to your comment, but what does your Avatar picture say?

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Being one of the teams that originally decided against the low bar, I still feel the same way. One of the biggest advantages we felt was that we didn't have to limit ourselves in the designing processes due to small packing constraints. We did have some issues over the course of the season with our high CG, but the difficulty in blocking our shots and ease of attaching our climber made it well worth it.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We ultimately decided that it was possible for us to accomplish all of our goals while still designing a robot that was under 14" tall. I think going high would've made a lot of the design easier, but one of our goals was to be able to solo-breach, so we would've been forced to design a sally port/drawbridge mechanism. Looking back, I think that going low may not have been worth it, but there are some distinct advantages, like having low CG that Chris mentioned, that made it better.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Transformer bot was the way to go this year, it is not an easy task to package and make successful this design. We only built how we did because of the last 2 years of offseason robot projects. In 2015 preseason we built our first ever elevator using proper methods, and then we built our 2015 robot with an elevator using what we learned. In 2016 preseason we built an articulated arm bot, a knockoff Mammoth from 971 to play Aerial Assist at MadTown Throwback, this year we built an articulated elevator arm using what we learned. Teams that successfully implement swerve drives do so by making it work in the offseason first. Build what you know, learn before you build as much as you can.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

From a design standpoint, it was worth it. I feel we learned how to build within a set of constraints based on preference to go under the low bar, rather than build the same high robot as usual. It was certainly a challenge that we will be more prepared for in the future.

From a performance standpoint, it was not worth it. We could have certainly done better with a taller robot. We could already clear all the defenses with little effort (minus the Drawbridge and Sally Port). There's also a lot less room to tinker under 16 inches.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I feel like it really depends on how you play.
Initially we wanted to be a bot that could literally do everything, and the low bar was included.
However, after our first competition, we realized that we could be alot more effective as a shooter bot, (if we got it working) than as a defense bot.

As it turns out, during eliminations at almost all of our competitions it helped to simply go back and forth under the low bar while popping in high goals.

I may be wrong, but I feel like having to cross a different defense would have been a secondish shorter.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I completely agree, and this was one of the main deciding factors for our team to go tall. Two members of our design team, myself included, were on the team back in 2012 and this year we essentially designed and built a Rebound Rumble robot for 10" balls that could also climb. This helped us to see what to do and what not to do based off of successes and failures of that past design.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

If we were told to build another robot from scratch, knowing what would happen, our team wouldn't second guess going under the low bar.

The low bar provided the fastest cycle time and for fast shooters like us, we did a lot of damage. Especially with our last game. We had 11 attempted shots, 9 goals, one bounce out, and the other I have no idea what happened. (we're the red bot that's cycling low bar)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfpxuq4s16..._high.MP4?dl=0

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I think I would 100% still go low bar.

It helped us 1.) defeat 1/4 of the required-to-breach defenses ourselves quickly (1 RP) and also 2.)establish our two ball auto. IMO most importantly though, it 3.) helped us control our own destiny in quals due to fast cycles allowing us to score a ton of boulders (2 more RP) which then let us pick another shooter during alliance selection to take some of the heat off us both in elims.

I was a huge proponent (shouting, yelling, etc) of a low bar robot from day 1 but I also recognized that it was going to take all of our "design horsepower" to package everything into that machine effectively and I warned the team. Every year we have a hardcore design challenge or three that tax our resources above all else:

12 - swerve and targeting
13 - shooter
14 - shooter
15 - swerve, weight reduction and automation
16 - packaging capabilities into low bar machine

I would however choose not to use tank tracks again. Not because they were bad or anything but I think they 1.) drove design decisions and 2.) limited our performance for 3.) a perceived benefit that could have been EASILY obtained by smart wheel choice.

That said, it was a great season.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

For the teams that were the top scoring low bar bots, yes. A lot of other teams could have made an amazing shooter had they not chose the low bar.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I think the low bar was worth it. Our team values being extremely versatile on the field, and designing for the low bar helped us accomplish just that. Besides allowing us to score points through the low bar, it forced us to keep a low CG which helped us in playing defense. I was originally against it, but if I could go back and redesign our bot, I'd keep our low bar capability.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Having been a major low-bar-capable supporter from the beginning I'm very glad we decided to go low.

One thing, which I was unsure of at first, but wouldn't do without now as a driver, is our spring loaded climber arm, it was light, and it stuck up high so I NEVER lost sight of our robot, but when going under the low bar there was nothing to think about bringing down. It flopped down and back up all by it self.

This is our lightest robot ever, I think, and that is largely due to the limited space we had to put stuff, it was really nice to see the scale say 100.4 at inspection instead of 119.8 like last year. I gave us assurance that if we needed to add something it was not a problem as far as weight was concerned.

Honestly if we had chosen to not do the low bar we would have basically built our 2012 bot with pneumatic wheels or tracks and a larger ball path. Idk, but I feel like that may have removed some of the learning we get every year from the challenge.

I loved having tracks this year PID+low CG made them handle like a dream and we never got stuck on a defense. A taller bot may not have been as stable on the tracks. (but honestly it is hard to tip a 14 lbs battery that is 1.5 in off the floor in the center of the bot)

As already mentioned the ability to fit it in the back of a hatchback/SUV is very convenient for demonstrations.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I would add 1678 to your list because of their extending shooter and double jointed arm.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Yes. Helped 3534 with fast cycles and strategy options during matches. We spent a lot of time up front in cad working out the simple geometry to extend from 14" to the scale bar. So many experts said it couldn't be done. We took that challenge and we were among the top scalers in Michigan. Our high shooter was more limited by programming problems than the low bar capable design. Our best season ever and first trip to Worlds was a great payoff.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

for us, absolutely. I can also see how for some teams it makes sense to forgo the low bar in favor of simplifying reaching other objectives. The ability to forget about the category C defenses and still get the breach without the aid of alliance members was a huge thing for us.

We also gave up a lot to do this though. We did not attempt the high goal or climbing in favor of having more practice time and a simpler more robust design.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Was it worth it? To me, yes. A couple of our matches, we were the only robot, or moving robot, on the field. We could do A, B, and D defenses, no problem, every time. That left us with doing the LB to finish a breach. Sure we could design something to make us do C class, but I liked the low CG more than being able to do C class from the Neutral Zone. Our team listed goals that we hoped to accomplish this season, and our LB bot did them all. I wouldn't change a thing.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Nope. The low bar wasn't one of our best strategies. It was definitely good to have a lower center of gravity for the driving obstacles, but ultimately we ran the other defenses more than the low bar.

Our team actually had to rebuild the electronics board three times because the size constraints gave us so little room to work with. In addition, the fact that we had all these parts all over each other meant that in order to fix one part, we had to dismantle another section to gain access to it.

Even so, the robot only fit under the low bar when perfectly aligned, so we ended up bashing in parts of the frame during close matches. :(

We learned a lot this year, especially in regards to building under a size constraint. All in all, we built a good bot, it's just that limiting the size so severely for the sake of ONE obstacle may not have been the best call. I think we went with it just to see if we could, especially with all the low bar hype from some other teams.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Yep, very helpful for those breaches and auto mode.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

For 5803, the low bar was absolutely the right decision, since we did not want to tackle a high shooter as rookies. We designed a robot that we felt would play qualification matches well and seed well, with the ultimate season goal being to qualify for World Championships. Without the requirements of a shooter, the low bar was absolutely our biggest asset:

1) It was our first working autonomous mode (and only working auto until our 3rd event)
2) It was our fastest cycling defense which enabled us, as rookies, to capture the #1 seed at PNW District Championship an #4 seed on Curie. I would say we built a pretty good seeding robot once we got it running well. Our best performances had us scoring 8 balls solo at Champs with 30 seconds left on the clock.
3) We designed with a focus on breaching and had the capability to solo cross all 9 defenses (though we only ever attempted Drawbridge once, without any prior practice with the real drawbridge, and gave up after 2 unsuccessful attempts to maintain control of it all the way down).

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I think it was worth it. It made many of our cycles quick and our drivers were the most comfortable doing low bar high goal cycles in teleop I'd say. Also, our low bar high goal auto mode is our most consistent auto mode.. Being able to go under the low bar and over Cat A, B, and D defenses was nice which meant we could essentially breach on our own which was important to us at regional's where our bot was the one relied to get at least 3 RP's per match.

It did affect what type of shooter we wanted to pick this year (either a flywheel or a catapult) since we weren't a fan of implementing a flywheel shooter and putting that on the robot with constraints. (we ended up going with a pneumatic catapult because it was easier to program, but it was also easier to fit on the robot if we wanted to go under the low bar) It was definitely worth it IMO.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I'm torn.

On one hand on 5254 we've had our shots blocked multiple times throughout the season, and getting a shooter from that height to consistently make shots from multiple locations is difficult.

On the other hand being able to do the low bar helps us ensure the breach, and I'm not sure we could have made a drawbridge/sallyport mechanism as effective as 1241 or 27 did.

Additionally having a low center of gravity was very useful, especially as we saw so many teams get tipped throughout the season.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I'd say yes because it allowed us to renovate our autonomous, scaling system and main arm in general. It was a challenge yes, but it was nice to come across and go under the bar smoothly and fast after final modifications were completed.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Knowing what we know now about how the meta of Stronghold works at our levels of play, a low bar capable robot with the functions and qualities we set out at the beginning of the season made sense when weighing our goals and our resources.

Were we to build a second robot for offseason events, we would almost 100% go with a tall robot in the vein of a 2451 or maybe an 1197, but not something like 1241/3476. We can learn how to do some things for the first time or learn different approaches to the game.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I'm also torn. Both teams I worked with went low, and the team I'm an alumni of went low too. It worked out well for at least 2/3 of them. I like low CG robots, but after watching Newton I could see why tall could have been much easier to make a more effective robot with at least from a simple design standpoint.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Low bar was worth it for our team for a variety of reasons:
-Kept the center of gravity low which prevented flipping. Without the low bar we would have built a much higher robot.
-Excellent in learning about compact electronics and some space saving ideas.
-The low bar was also good because it gave you an easy autonomous.

If i was to redesign our robot i would have most defiantly kept it low bar capable

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We did use it with success in this match.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

For 4607, the low bar was definitely worth it. It took absolutely no functionality away from our robot. We could still climb, block robots with our 54" tall arm, and we also had a low center of gravity.

If there were no low bar at all, I think our robot would look almost identical to how it looks now. It might be 15" tall instead of 12".

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We on 3476 were very happy that there was abundant low bar bots to work with. Our robot had a lot of weaknesses and almost always a low robot compensated this. If more teams went tall, we would had a much tougher time.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I believe our team, and many others for that matter, would have had a better chance at adding a climber if we were tall. For that reason, it was not worth it to me.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We chose to not go low bar, and I'm 100% certain that was the right choice for us. I don't believe we had the design experience to have pulled that packaging off effectively.

HOWEVER. Our high CG was absolutely our Achilles heel. Tipping cost us a regional win, and I believe it also cost us Carson. Given the chance to redesign this robot, I would completely re-work our shooting mechanism to bring it down way lower and back in the robot so that we could still have our undefendable OW shot but without such a CG penalty. Probably not a full-on low bar robot though.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Yes, it was worth it. Going under the low bar gave an easy access to the opponents courtyard for scoring, especially considering our chassis was low to the ground and had a chance at catching on some of the other defenses. If we could have done it all over again, we would have designed a different shooter, one that comes out of the frame perimeter and saved room for other parts of our robot inside the chassis.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

The only thing I would change about our robot is that I'd have pneumatic wheels on the drivetrain, and a better portcullis lift. (I couldn't find decent pneumatic wheels by the time we'd hammered down the choice for sure, and should have ordered them at kickoff just in case--live and learn on that score.)

I was tremendously surprised at how many robots *weren't* designed like ours--we were three feet tall, but everything could collapse down to go under the low bar. That made the low bar a bit more resource-heavy (air), but entirely doable, and also made the other manipulators (I think we were one of the few for whom the drawbridge is nearly effortless, and we have a good climber) significantly easier to design.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

This is a hard question for me. Knowing what I know now about our team's performance (3rd district win but no MSC), I feel like if we were a low bot we would have stood a much better chance at making MSC. At our first district, we had a lot of trouble getting over defenses due to our suboptimal CoG and the inexperience with getting over the metal defenses instead of the wooden ones (for some reason the wood defenses felt easier to cross).

As the season went on, we got better at the defenses, but we still had somewhat of a tipping problem (tipped twice at Southfield, tipped twice at Woodhaven, one being in the finals although we still won the match). If we would have designed to be a low breaching bot who could score low, I don't doubt that we would have seeded higher and have a much better chance at getting to MSC and potentially Champs.
However, I don't believe we would have won any of our events if we went low.

Its a hard question, but I think if you asked me to go build a new robot today, I think I would go high, but definitely go with a different design that allowed for the shooter to speed up while aligning to shoot, and have a lower CoG.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

For us, I would say yes. First of all, we decided against a high shooter because it would have required vision code, which we didn't know how to do and didn't think there would be enough time to test. (There wasn't.) Since we were a breacher/low shooter, we didn't really need to be tall. Instead, we needed a fast cycle time, which the low bar provided. Having a low CG also made it easier to go fast over defenses without worrying about tipping. The only downside for us was that our robot was shorter than the metal on the sides of the field, allowing our robot to escape the field due to a bug in auto and broken e-stops.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We removed the capability to fit underneath the low bar from our machine for our final three matches at Championship, in favor of a 53.875" high shot blocker. In that sense, the answer might be "no."

However, for the strategy we selected, I do feel it was worth it. In our first couple meetings, we pegged down that we wanted to play for the bonus ranking points. We play in the district system, and your qualification standings are a big factor in your district points. Getting into the top 8 is essentially a double pay-off, since you not only get points for your seeding, but also guarantee yourself alliance captain points. Based on this, we established that we wanted to virtually guarantee breaches and help as much as we could towards a capture. Based on this, we determined that crossing categories A, B, and D were absolute requirements, and we would design in the capability to either cross under the low bar or open category C. Ultimately, we ended up with a low bar capable machine.

Part of the reason we selected the low bar was for autonomous. It was the only defense we absolutely knew the position of. Further still, it required no active manipulation to pass. Based on this, we determined it would give us the best odds of completing an autonomous low goal. While we did eventually end up scoring from position 4 (Ramparts) as well, that assumption did prove correct, as the low bar routine was our most consistent autonomous in terms of scoring (albeit, still far from 100%).

Ultimately, I think our strategy paid off. Although some early season technical issues almost prevented us from reaching DCMP (which is something we feel we should accomplish every season), we eventually accrued enough points to earn one of MAR's point spots in St. Louis. Our seeding actually improved at each of our four events, to the point where we seeded 8th and captained the 6th alliance on Hopper. We can't quite boast the gaudy 7 or 8 low goals per match of some of the elite low goal machines, but we were very consistent at 5 goals/match at Championship (a couple times 6), and did so while crossing a variety of defenses to ensure breaches, rather than cycling over one. If we had more practice cycling across the low bar, we may have been able to put up a higher max score (although having to both articulate our intake and turn around to cycle would have slowed us some). Being able to consistently score 50% of the capture balls and complete breaches proved to be a massive aid in seeding high at both DCMP and CMP, and we ended up as alliance captains at both.

Had we been from a regional structure, our strategy decision may have landed elsewhere. Another one of the roles we considered was a "sweeper" that attempted to stay forwards and score boulders in the high goal. If we didn't care as much about qualifications rankings, we may have selected this (though, one of our reasons for shying away from this is we didn't feel we could build as reliable a sweeper machine as top tier teams).

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I could go either way with this one.

It was nice to have insurance for if we wanted to pair with a non-low bar shooter in elims and play a taller defense bot at the same time, which we took advantage of twice.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

I like the transformer idea... once again I'm impressed with what 67 did... reminds me of their 2012 bot where they make use of existing material for multiple functions! Low bar has advantage of less wear and tear from the defenses. I personally would have designed a rocker and bogie to minimize wear and tear.... but that's just me.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Since we decided only to score low goals, the low bar was totally worth it.
If we decided to go for the high goal, personally I would rather be tall

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We specialized in breaching LB and had 6 inches of ground clearance which meant that sally/bridge were the only ones we could not cross without help.

Then with some practice and the spin move we could do the sallyport without help leaving only the drawbridge which was not put out very often.

In week 1 that got us #2 seed. By week 5 we were second pick of #6 seed... but that took us to the finals and a trip to MFC.

In our early design meetings we choose to start low bar capable we felt the it would be easy to grow taller after our first event if we wanted. But getting shorter would have been very near impossible.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

We decided to be low bar capable, AND be able to clear the rock wall without bottoming out (we used 4 wheels). That left us with approx. 10" of height to work with. In the end it worked out fine, but some parts could have been a little better with the extra space (such as the electronics boards*).

*we had to split up the electronics board into two main parts: a top part with the PDP, drivetrain motor controllers, 120 Amp breaker and radio; and the bottom part with the RoboRio, VRM, and two motor controllers for our arm. And both with wires organized/zip tied down/etc. to my best ability.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

My opinion is very mixed. I think it was a great learning experience for our team, going through several design creator we designed around, and we came up with a design that I think most of us are happy with. Me, as the Electrical lead was pissed when they told me "Oh, those victors you put on there, yeah those won't work. You are about an 1/4 in too tall. How do you fell about rewiring all of our motor controllers with those shiny new Talon SRXs? Awesome. Oh, and Stop Build is two days away." Programming wasn't happy either. We had to cut a lot of stuff out, including our climber which someone spent a lot of time on. I agree with Sperkowsky that the ability to be able to transport the robot in a regular car was a major advantage for us, and we've already done two outreach events because of it. We did none last year.

In short:
Pros:
-Outreach events are easier
-Awesome design challenge and experience
Cons:
-Our robot looked like literally everyone else's at our comps
-Design challenge was probably a little bit too hard for our experience
-Easier breaching, but too focused on breaching, our low goal scorer (not really a shooter) really sucked.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

694 is very happy about choosing not to go under the low bar. We originally intended to try for low bar, but we quickly abandoned that idea during our CAD marathon when we realized that our design just wouldn't fit.

We knew from the get-go that having a low-bar capable robot is an absolute necessity for eliminations, but we didn't realize quite how ubiquitous low bar capability would be. By building a tall robot with a really fast drivetrain, we were able to breach extremely consistently. If you forget about South Florida regional (which we so dearly wish to forget), we were able to breach every match that our robot was working (and some matches that it wasn't).

We also realize, however, that we are the outlier in our success, particularly in that we were a #8 seed alliance on Einstein. Being able to go under the low-bar and score low goals is huge in qualifications, as it opens the door for captures much more frequently than would otherwise be possible. Seeding first is also hugely valuable towards winning events.

TLDR:

The ubiquity of low bar robots made it easy to get the advantages of low-bar for both qualifications and eliminations. In a world where low bar was more rare, low bar robots would completely dominate because having at least one low-bar bot is basically mandatory for a strong alliance.

Re: Was the Low Bar worth it?
 

Absolutely worth it. We stayed low, never got a single tortuga after 5 events, and successfully accomplished every single challenge of the game with the exception of the drawbridge with one robot. We got our high goal shooter dialed in at champs but quickly realized that it was too late and that other teams in our division were still faster than us. We even successfully cheesecaked our tiny climber for two other teams.

What worked in NC simply did not work at Championships. We were prepared for that until our climber gearbox broke on us after 3 competitions and we missed climbing for three or four matches. I believe if we had spent more time on our high goal shooter capability we would have been more competitive at the big show.