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-   -   Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing? (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153477)

Sperkowsky 11-01-2017 23:35

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Roboshant (Post 1629735)
I think a team can feasibly achieve 2 out of the 3 tasks rather simply. (in order of simplicity)

1. Passive gear mechanism
2. Velcro (if ruled legal) or other type of drum/winch climber mechanism

The aforementioned 2 tasks could probably be manufactured and put on a robot in 1-2 weeks or less by a good amount of teams. This leaves a good amount time to develop a somewhat effective shooter. Now that time could possibly be better spent improving other function of the robot along with driver's practice. At the end of the day I think many teams find themselves with the resources to check off all three tasks, but I'm curious to see how this translates to competition.

I am on a similar wavelength with Dikshant. A passive gear mechanism can be integrated quite easily. The climber is a bit harder but really again if velcro is ruled legal (Which I am of the mindset this is almost a definite) than all you need for a climber is a drum covered in hard velcro. With all the COTS solutions for Drums from WCP and Competition Robot Parts this isnt hard at all and could be extremely effective.

My team personally is going to be prioritizing balls over gears and gears over climbing. However, I do expect to be able to accomplish everything. Atleast by our 2nd regional ;).

However, we will not even be attempting to build a climber until our shooter as well as gear mechanisms are all atleast somewhat working. Karthiks Golden Rules are definitely something which should be taken to heart. I hear he knows a thing or two about FRC.

Hgree56 12-01-2017 07:06

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Last night, Team 4272 Maverick Boiler Robotics decide we would only be focusing on only two aspects of the game and not all three. As a team, we decided our efforts would be best put towards two high quality (relative to our past) systems rather than three below average systems.

I'm not bashing on teams that try all three, it's just our team did not think WE could do it and do it well.

Siri 12-01-2017 08:18

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint (Post 1629729)
Teams should push their limits, a regional of AM14U3's driving around playing defense is not one I want to watch.

Some of you are coming across very elitist. Will a team/student learn more from simply assembling kit bot or from trying something completely out of their comfort zone? Yes they should try to do it in the offseason, but if they only do FRC during build season, they should try something new.

Fail early and fail often, just learn from each one. It isn't a robot right?

There are no wrong ways to learn in FRC (there are ways that align less efficiently with one's goals). However, I have spent years trying to teach folks that the learning experience that comes from optimizing a simpler system is just as valuable (and often more so because it's a less common experience) than taking on a bigger design spec. Teams can certainly learn a lot from building shooters and loaders of all types. Teams who don't invest time in a high shooter can also learn huge amounts about more detailed design optimization that is often drastically undervalued.

Personally, I've always found the FRC tendency to value the learning experience of attempting more "elite" bots versus the experience from building simpler ones to be ridiculously elitist. It's also a culture that generates a lot of common learning gaps like this. I admit we tend to overcompensate in an attempt to get some teams to reassess. I do believe this is a year on which more robots than some other years can do all functions (certainly more than full-color, 30 point climb, floor pickup of 2013), but that doesn't mean everyone who might be able to automatically should.

jgerstein 12-01-2017 08:31

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint (Post 1629729)
Teams should push their limits, a regional of AM14U3's driving around playing defense is not one I want to watch.

Some of you are coming across very elitist. Will a team/student learn more from simply assembling kit bot or from trying something completely out of their comfort zone? Yes they should try to do it in the offseason, but if they only do FRC during build season, they should try something new.

Fail early and fail often, just learn from each one. It isn't a robot right?

Before I start - every team needs to do what works for them, which may or may not be what works for my team. My opinions are my own, I don't speak on behalf of my team here.

You seem to be setting up a pretty harsh binary set of options here - either building a box on wheels or going way outside a team's comfort zone. My experience has been that my students seem to get the most learning and inspiration from doing something just a little bit outside of their comfort zone, but still within their reach if they push for it.

Up until about 2013, 1257 was a shoot for the stars sort of team. Every year, the goal was to do everything. Every year, that goal led to chaos. Students bit off way more than they could chew, and that turned into frustration, which turned into anger, which turned into burnout. By the end of build season, nobody wanted to be around anybody else on the team. Nothing much happened in the offseason, because nobody wanted to be there. We were a terrible team - not just in terms of competitive performance, but even in terms of being a group of people who worked together.

In 2014, we started to listen to some of the mentors you're referring to as sounding elitist. We realized that we weren't ready to build an Einstein bot - we needed to focus on being able to build a robot that worked at all. We simplified, and we didn't try to do everything. We weren't a captain, or even a first pick, but we got picked. Given our team's recent history at the time, that was a big deal to us. The students had a much better experience on the team when they weren't overwhelmed by trying to reach too far out of their comfort zone, and they learned a lot more when the robot was simple enough that more of the team could understand what was going on and work on it.

Our goal since then has not been to build outside our reach, but to expand our reach a bit each year. If the KOP chassis starts to become trivial, we can modify it. If modified KOP chassis becomes trivial, we can try designing a custom chassis, starting with one in the off-season. If we know that we can absolutely, without a doubt, get one task done well, we can try for two.

Also, please keep in mind that for some teams, a basic box-bot truly is a challenge. I see multiple teams every year that struggle simply to have a legal robot that they can drive around the field.

throwaway 12-01-2017 08:34

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by jgerstein (Post 1629805)
Before I start - every team needs to do what works for them, which may or may not be what works for my team. My opinions are my own, I don't speak on behalf of my team here.

You seem to be setting up a pretty harsh binary set of options here - either building a box on wheels or going way outside a team's comfort zone. My experience has been that my students seem to get the most learning and inspiration from doing something just a little bit outside of their comfort zone, but still within their reach if they push for it.

Up until about 2013, 1257 was a shoot for the stars sort of team. Every year, the goal was to do everything. Every year, that goal led to chaos. Students bit off way more than they could chew, and that turned into frustration, which turned into anger, which turned into burnout. By the end of build season, nobody wanted to be around anybody else on the team. Nothing much happened in the offseason, because nobody wanted to be there. We were a terrible team - not just in terms of competitive performance, but even in terms of being a group of people who worked together.

In 2014, we started to listen to some of the mentors you're referring to as sounding elitist. We realized that we weren't ready to build an Einstein bot - we needed to focus on being able to build a robot that worked at all. We simplified, and we didn't try to do everything. We weren't a captain, or even a first pick, but we got picked. Given our team's recent history at the time, that was a big deal to us. The students had a much better experience on the team when they weren't overwhelmed by trying to reach too far out of their comfort zone, and they learned a lot more when the robot was simple enough that more of the team could understand what was going on and work on it.

Our goal since then has not been to build outside our reach, but to expand our reach a bit each year. If the KOP chassis starts to become trivial, we can modify it. If modified KOP chassis becomes trivial, we can try designing a custom chassis, starting with one in the off-season. If we know that we can absolutely, without a doubt, get one task done well, we can try for two.

Also, please keep in mind that for some teams, a basic box-bot truly is a challenge. I see multiple teams every year that struggle simply to have a legal robot that they can drive around the field.

Perfectly stated.

NinjaMunkeeNao 12-01-2017 08:35

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
I don't know what my team's doing yet but I do wish everyone attempting to do all three good luck! It seems like a lot to handle.

D_Price 12-01-2017 08:41

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
As a mentor for my team we have an effective strategy for picking up gears, grabbing fuel from either the feeder station or floor, and climbing. Implementing those within our design and ensuring that we are above average on all of those is our best game plan. We will see how it works.
"The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks." -Mark Zuckerburg

efoote868 12-01-2017 08:47

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Ross (Post 1629724)
I don't think 330 should have built 330's 2016 robot

I've been advising my team to pick one thing to be the best at - fuel or gears - and consider ignoring the other completely. The response I've received has been "we can't rely on others in qualifications because ranking point and districts," which seems to mean to me that we're going to try and do everything.

I'll be interested to see what everyone does. I'm betting the strongest alliance will be formed by the best fuel bot and the best gear bot, with the 3rd pick being a competent drive train able to play defense, reliably dump fuel in the low goal and/or occasionally hang gears. Bonus points if the 3rd bot has 8-15 lbs available for a cheesecaked rope solution (if that's even legal this year).

JesseK 12-01-2017 09:29

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
45% of people who responded to this and the other poll (Gears vs Balls) are implying that it's better to be mediocre at everything rather than great at a few things. :confused:

(edit) - hint hint - passive gear mechanisms alone do not make a robot 'great' at gears.

VIKotic Dave 12-01-2017 09:43

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
As a mentor I believe that a team should prototype all the possibilities.
Team 5920 will be prototyping and test all the possibilities that is the way the students will learn. Maybe some mechanisms may not end up on the robot but you just may find the perfect balance to include all.

Lil' Lavery 12-01-2017 09:59

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseK (Post 1629835)
45% of people who responded to this and the other poll (Gears vs Balls) are implying that it's better to be mediocre at everything rather than great at a few things. :confused:

(edit) - hint hint - passive gear mechanisms alone do not make a robot 'great' at gears.

+1

Just because you "can" accomplish a task doesn't mean you will be good at a task. More to the point, the lack of concern for design optimization troubles me greatly. Let's take fuel scoring as an example. Being high top level fuel scoring robot likely means taking steps in your design to optimize for ball storage. The more additional mechanisms you add to your robot, the less space you have available to store fuel. This is a simple and objective truth. You're directly compromising your fuel storage ability by adding additional systems. Similar examples can also apply to intake geometry and placement, drivetrain dimensioning, sizing choices, etc.

Brandon_L 12-01-2017 10:03

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell (Post 1629707)
We have two that we've made much bigger priorities, and the third will be extra if we get to it.

This is how this game should be designed for, for sure. I would vote that we're doing all 3, but a more fair assessment is we're doing two of the three and the last is being worked on but not a priority

MrForbes 12-01-2017 10:24

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Maybe I see things a bit differently...but I look at three different scoring methods, with three different levels of reward, difficulty, and effort to make the mechanism. One of them has what I consider to be a very high effort to make a very effective mechanism, the other two will take a medium effort to make. Our team is going for the two relatively easy scoring methods, and doing our best to ignore the really difficult one (even though it is obviously the most fun).

Should be an interesting build season.

I was also thinking back over the past several games, and noticed that lately there have been games that require added mechanisms to accomplish the end game, where if you go back several years, that was not the case. FRC robot design is getting more challenging.

Nemo 12-01-2017 10:29

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
People talk a good game about recommending that other teams leave out a core game function.

If you're a team that's good enough to consistently seed as an alliance captain, then sure, it's more convenient for you to draw qualifier round allies and 2nd round picks that are capable of doing one function really well. But those allies aren't necessarily doing themselves any favors (competitively speaking) by capping their abilities at a scoring level that's too low to win a regional except as a lottery winner 2nd round pick. I'm not trying to disparage the value of those 2nd round teams, but I do say that banking on being that team is a low probability proposition. I'd only want to go that route if my team's resources were low enough to rule out any reasonable possibility of building the everything bot and seeding high.

The scoring math is depressing to look at for robots that are missing one of the key elements.

It comes down to team resources. It makes sense for lower resource teams to pick something and stick to it. This isn't a year when I'd advise a middle resource team to skip out on part of the game, and that's due to the nature of the game scoring.

Chris is me 12-01-2017 10:34

Re: Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nemo (Post 1629890)
People talk a good game about recommending that other teams leave out a core game function.

...

It comes down to team resources. It makes sense for lower resource teams to pick something and stick to it. This isn't a year when I'd advise a middle resource team to skip out on part of the game, and that's due to the nature of the game scoring.

I'm on a team (228) that is in some respects high resource and some respects low resource depending on what aspect of the team you're referring to. Trust me, I'm not telling other teams one thing and doing another. There's things our team can definitely do, things our team can maybe do, and things we definitely can't do, and we've used that to evaluate our strategy and to decide which critical game functions to be excellent at. And if the other ones get in the way, they won't be done with our robot. You have partners.

The advice given, to not be a jack of all trades, isn't the top teams trying to talk down to middle teams to get better second picks. It's not only a good idea because you're a better 16th selection that way; you'll be a more effective robot overall and quite possibly a captain or first pick. The advice is gets middle ground teams to win events. Depending on your team, the event, the task, and how good you're at it, you can definitely seed first without doing all of the game tasks this year.


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