King of Mountain Robots
 

for those of you who are making the king of the mountian bots or combinations that have this strategy how big are your Arms/Wings/Walls going to be, such as height and width.
im wondering because our ideas seem to be going down the drain based on weight and cost of the materials

Re: King of Mountain Robots
 

Let it keep going, Our walker/Wheel Drive Winged king of the hill bot, as of 10:20PM in Pro-E using weight computing function weighs a grand total of 160!!!Pounds, WE can change the design this late, we just have to build it then start drilling to take out weight.

It is designed to expand to 11.5 feet, and each wing can be seperatly lifted and lowered. See my signature for an explination
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That information isn't going to be given out from us. But contact me via PM and i'll try and help out with a wieght-efficiant simple design that you can alter the heck out of.


By the by:
Mark Setrakian

MY team didn't want to build one but we came up with the design for one so that we would know what we would be going up against. It had wings that were 9 feet wide. That left 1.5 feet on each side. To small for a robot to get through. It also had braces so that it could be pushed at an angle and thus pushed out of the way. It would have owned the bridge. But stacking is sooo much more fun.

Why go for 11.5? It seems like 10 feet is sufficent because few if any bots can squeeze through a foot path. I haven't done the math but if your 11.5ft wide and you get twisted up there will you touch both sides?

Re: Re: King of Mountain Robots
 

drill out the weight? didnt 166 have major problems from dilling too much weigt out last year

just be careful where you drill, our engineers in 2001 drilled our wheel mounts, and then at competition we snapped 2 of them off. And since then we hve snapped the reparied versions of those 2 wheel mounts off again. (which is why at river rage in 2002 we had 2wheels, instead of the 4 we had when we came to merriack on the 4th of july for the demo)

Unless a piece gets broken off and is hanging, no an 11.5' bot won't ever touch both sides. It would twist in a rough circle with a diameter of 11.5'. This would never be able to touch both sides at once.

hehe
 

hehehe...who neds wings?

Yea...about that 160 pound thing... well you see in Pro-E you have to give a density to all the metals and parts, and well..., some of them were set at 1 instead of regular aluminium which is .097, so a 3x2x5 piece of tube weighed something like 5 pounds, this has all been fixed and now the robot, with out controls and one wing weighs 97 pounds, so yea... sorry about that...hehe

wouldn't having an 11 1/2 foot wingspan be bad? If someone rams you at the tip of the arm, it would be extremely easy for them to spin you around.

I can guarantee you that any creators of any kind of king-of-the hill robot will have thought about this issue- they'll either have friction brakes, suction cups, or something of the like

i just have to say that if you dont knock all the boxes to one side and then stay on hill, there is little point to a king of the hill bot. stacking wins matches.

Stacking will be like the black balls of 2000. It seems like a lot of points but its not the deciding factor. In 2000 hanging was the key. This year a ramp dom can score 25 and prevent 50 thats a 75 point sway. They also prevent boxes from going back up over the ramp. Stacking is to risky. If you spend a minute making a stack of 10 someone can hit you/the stack and all of a sudden its gone. Meanwhile the ramp dom is parked on the ramp waiting for the clock to run out. So if Red is stuck on the far side and red human players put a stack of 4 and 4 on the floor that 16 for red. While a blue ramp dom has 25 points. Red no HAS to move boxes over the bar and stack them while the other blue just causes havok and prevents a stack on any magnitude.

Sam's Prediction
 

Not necessarily.... If the boxes are removed from the playing field (i.e. pushed/carried out) bridge points could matter. If a bridge blocker can take its alliance partner on the bridge with him they have 50 points. If the partner is good at removing boxing it could be very difficult to defend the 15 boxes needed to win (especially because you can't have just one stack).:cool:

As a strategist, I hereby predict the winning alliance this year to be the bridge blocking/box removing pair illustrated above (somebody remember where this is so we can find it again and see how good I am:) ).

Anybody care to disprove? (No, seriously, is this legal?:confused: )

11' Wingspan
 

I am wating to see a robot spread out to over 10' that can stop a charging high traction (tracked or multiple wheeled drive) robot out on its wingtips. My guess is that the plastic top will be a mess after the first day and suction will become less and less effective quickly. I am sure someone will have some neato tricks to stay planted up there but I just can not see how a wingspan at that large with only 130 lbs total will be able to resist a brute force attack on it.:confused:

if it can be done on carpet, i am sure that someone will find a way to do it on plastic. think of taht lovely huge suction cup they gave us.

Dew Wager Anyone?
 

O.K.,

This is the perfect time to bring up a Mountain Dew Wager.

First, my position on the subject:

While I agree that an effective stacker might be hard to come by, it is not quite the black balls of 2000. The biggest difference: The 2000 black balls were only worth 5 points and stacks are multipliers. Look back in FIRST history. When were multipliers not a factor? Could this be the first time the multiplier will not make the difference?

My wager is that the multiplier will be the difference, but that 25 point robot position does put some doubt in my head.

I think that to be an effective ramp dominator, you will need to spend your entire life on the ramp and that basically makes it a 2 v. 1 game. And make no mistake that there will be robots very effective at relocating bins from one side to the other without using the ramp (Chief Delphi, this is my prediction for one of your functions). While I agree that there probably will be a few robots capable of taking control of the top of the ramp, they will be doing that the whole match.

Any takers? I say the multiplier will be the difference again this year.

-Paul

Re: Dew Wager Anyone?
 

Paul,
I'm in.

I say the ramp position will be the key thing this year.
Except, I'm not a Dew fan... I'll take rootbeer... haha.

I'll take ya on the wager
 

I don't think stacking is the key. I think *drumroll* going under the bar is going to be the key. I like Mountain Dew, in fact, Team 706 runs off of Mountain Dew, so I won't mind taking one from you, and we will have plenty in the unlikely case you actually win :D See ya at Midwest!

It's Warming Up
 

O.K,

That's 1 rootbeer and 1 Mountain Dew for me. Anyone else?

Do I stand alone in my belief that stacking is the key?


-Paul

I think stacking will be very very important, but even more so, a teams ability to control the opposing alliances stack. By this, I don't mean ramming into it, and sending boxes flying, but being able to manipulate a stack however they want. As a part of this, I also think that whoever can knock the majority of the "wall" onto their side will probably win the macth.

I know I'm supposed to pick one thing, but I don't think any one aspect will make or break a match, besides who hits the wall first

Cory

Suction is bad. We rejected suction the first day we decided to do King of the Hill because I knew by forum that the HDPE will be in varying conditions. We have this ghettoriffic thing so that a pair of pneumatic pumps with metal plates with rubber lift us off from the ground, thus having a completely stationary 'bot. Ours is built to be approx. 120 inches (10ft) long, and the actual bot is only 48". So it's not likely that we're going to be spun, that's 130 pounds of communist wall you're trying to move, with 48x10 inches of traction, my friend.

This is the most difficult bot to make I beleive, because though most bots need to work well and stay durable to some extent, we need to take the beating of two machines for a full 90 seconds. And we need to get up there first with a really fast drive, or else it just doesn't work.

On top of that, there are going to be plenty of low-riders that will go under the pipe, or have a crazy design that can go over the pipe, as well as other low-rider blockers (that's us).

How many weeks into build season has it been? 4? 5?:rolleyes:

ok, i think its time on got in on my post thread, our team was originally going to be a king of the hill bot with the ability to create small stacks. after a couple weeks we changed to a stacker that can spread the length. reason we changed - with what our "wing" team could use we came up with an amazing design that would keep us on the platform the whole time,in theory, the flaw with this design is that we couldnt find an easy way to get the wings back into our bot(we can go under the bar).. we changed the design a little while back because we wanted to be able to move, not just sit on top and HOPE that no one pushes us off, cuz then we would be useless.
im just afraid that king of the hill bots could make this game a little boring
oh, and who will guarantee that NO ONE will get by their "wall"? anybody that confident in their design? id like to hear from you

stackin is most definatley needed. to get high qps you need someone on either side to stack to get the points up there.

HUH!?!?!?!
 

Woah woah woah waoh WOAH!!!...

Tell me you didn't just say that the black balls in 2000 were not the key to the game?!?! The black balls in 2000 were by no means insignificant...they meant the difference between champions and runners up! Try telling the two teams who probably played the biggest role in the road to the finals, as well as the finals...Teams 25 and 131. For two teams who based their whole strategy on taking those little black balls that were ONLY worth 5 points, out of one goal and into another, they did pretty darn good! Furthermore, 131 didn't even hang! That only got them a regional championship and a nationals finalist trophy...

What it comes down to is this...we will have no clue what the most significant part of the game is until we leave Houston...but don't be suprised if its that one thing that may not seem like it was very significant at first.

Good Luck All!
-Andy Grady

I agree with ricksta that getting hi qps is the right way to go to seed as hi as posible...because we all know that the qualifing matches are just a dress rehrsal for the elimenation rounds. Thats when the real competition begins...

I'll take the opposite approach and say that controlling the ramp is going to be the key to winning. By winning I mean bringing home a trophy. Now if you have a robot that can stack but you can't go over the ramp congrats you just lost the game have fun running aimlessly on your side of the field. For all of you people who think scoring from the other side of the field is going to be the way to stop the dominant king of the hill bots ummmmm what if the alliance partner of the king of the hill robot comes over and keeps moving the bins out of the zone.

How tall are most blocking wings going to be? If they are less than 8 inches or so, our robot could just go fast and drive right over the top of them.

FIRST some replies...

"Any takers? I say the multiplier will be the difference again this year."
-Paul C
It will matter in qualifiers but not in finals.


"I say the ramp position will be the key thing this year."
-Jon V

I'll talk about Team 25 thinking its the Brystol Bot with the amazing arm that could cherry pick like a GOD, if team 25 was not the Brystol Bot then whatever...

Team 25 could take control of the field, they dominated the center and at least partially blocked half the field.

If you control the ramp you elimate half of the way across the field for a lowrider and you trap a non-lowrider. Ramp-dom also scores 25 points and prevents 50 points from the opponents. That a 75 point difference.

Even if a team can make a bot that can move boxes from one side to another it will still be slow because of the fact they'd have to be moved at least 12 feet. True a stacker may be able to stack 10 high but how are they gonna do that when they only have 8 human player boxes? They'd have to import at least 12 more. Then stack 10 high to get 100 points. I doubt that the ramp-doms ally would allow that to happen.

Even if the ramp-dom loses the fight for the wall it can still push boxes over the ramp back onto his side or at least out of the opponents scoring position, and when the stacker is almost done with his stack of 10(hopefully protecting it with some cage). the ramp-dom rams the stacker knocks it(stack and/or bot) over he can go back to the ramp for a triumpant win.

As to how high a ramp-dom will be, Some pics show bots with about 4 inch paddles others I'm sure will be 2ft+.

I just want to make sure the stackers know they have to:

1. Make a minimum stack of 7
2. Defend a minimum of two stacks from arms, flying boxes, etc.
3. Have massive amounts of torque to prevent another robot from pushing them into their stack

So, stackers, can you do this???

If your building a stacker and cannot meet these three criteria, all I can say is good luck. I think you're going to need it. :cool:

P.S. If you stackers are using a cage-like system, I hope you don't need room beyond your robot to release the boxes. This could be very risky....

the problem with the king of the hilll bots, is what if everyone is trying to do that? or you have an alliance, neither people stacking, the other team doesn't need a very high stack to easily beat you.

*our robot can't stack, but we'd like it too...

I'll put up a Dew on the first 15 seconds taking down the central wall as the key to the match. Not many teams will be able to effectively move large numbers of them across the field, so getting that wall down on your side makes a huge impact. Opposing stackers can't do much if they don't have boxes to play with.

Re: HUH!?!?!?!
 

I'm assuming the person meant the black balls from 2001 (the ones on the field, that is). During nationals, I don't recall a single team purposely scoring a black ball from the field in 2001.

-Chris

yea but we have like 3 brakes on our bot, we have 2 for the ends of the wings 1 pneumatic brake in the back an if we lower our foot that is also a brake....we aer not moving!



bad

granted that that does make it a little bit better for you, but just because you have breaking mechaisms at the ends of your arms doesn't mean that you necessarily have a weight center over those arms. as such, while the brakes underneath the chassis of your robot will most likely hold fast if someone tries to push you, the brakes under the arms wouldn't have lot of power (that is of course assuming that you do not lift your chassis off the floor to distribute the weight onto your arms - since you said that you have breaks under your chassis, i'm assuming that you don't do that). remember, traction on a smooth surface is a factor not only of your coefficient of friction, but also the force applied to the area of contact.

Last year, judges would allow a robot to "ram" an opposition robot once, but not allow it to continuously back off and ram them again and again. Kings-of-the-hill will be sitting pretty (for lack of a better term) if the judges enforce this rule again this year. If, however, the judges allow us to do what it takes to break a robot's traction on the platform, then I hope that the ramp dominators have built machines that can take a beating because we will get through.
It brings up an interesting question. Is it fair to allow for ramming of ramp dominators? I'm sure that your answer will be based upon whether or not you are a ramp-dominator, but I'll ask anyway.
I'm all about opening up on someone that sticks themselves to the top of the ramp. Especially since FIRST is going for the spectator-quality game. Watching 1:45 of barricade just doesn’t seem like it would be appealing.

king of the hillness
 

we start out at 22 inches wide and 11 inches high and we expand to 142 inches wide and 71 inches high. Block anyone?
And yes, we are a rookie team.

Obviously you missed *EVERY* one of our matches.. We were the big green robot that held all 3 goals (sometimes) and just anchored in the center of the field. Robots would start at the player station and ram full speed into a wing that was not supporting a goal several times over again and this was allowed. We also got the last DQ of the nation because a team repeatedly rammed into one of our wing joints where we had some string helping to strengthen the joint, they became entangled, freed themselves, then entangled themselves again... we were DQed.

Point being: If you're going to build a king-of-the-hill bot, be prepared to take a beating. Robot-to-Robot contact and damage is allowed if the defending robot is in a scoring position.

Wings = long lever to push you out of the way easier.

There is no legal way to secure your wings so that the other team cannot use it as a lever against you. You can't touch the sides, and you can't touch the mesh. I think some teams have forgotten some very basic physics. Oh well, the longer the better :D


Everyone that says stacks aren't a factor... I beg to differ. Please don't tell me that 29 boxes on the field aren't important... Even if you make some stacks of 2, you get more points than any king of the hill bot could ever get.

The maximum number of points 2 KOTH bots can get is 50 points.

A stacker can very easily earn that by getting the 29 boxes in the beginning and building a stack of 2, while you foolish robots just sit up there.

Re: Re: HUH!?!?!?!
 

He is referring to 2000 when there were black and yellow balls(I think). In 2001 the black balls were worth only one point

Cory

ok dude,
say like our bot can knock all 7 stacks on our side, if we get most of our boxes in front of the bridgewe still can get points if we have some in the zone. but you are right about the 50 points tho.

and i see it hard for people to push all 29 boxes BACK up the ramp, our team has a hard time with it. so i asssume that you are wrong


bad

However you stackers are forgetting that you are not going to have boxes on your scoring side of the field to stack. Hence you have to go through the ramp. If you can score from the otherside of the field then the king of the hill robots alliance partner I would imagine would be more than happy to move the boxes out of the zone or playing field. Anybody else think about this and who says a king of the hill robot can't stack??Muahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhaahhahahah ahhahaha:ahh:

To be King ...
 

Todd,

You are hitting to the heart of my point. I do think a robot powerful enough to be king of the hill can also be made to stack, but I also think that in order to truly dominate the middle ground you will need to get into position within the 1st 4 seconds and not move the entire match.

Do I think there will be teams to do this successfully? YES.

If there are teams that do this successfully, then their partner will be 2 v 1 for the entire match.

My contention is that the second a ramp dominator leaves the top surfaace, it becomes open territory.

-Paul

What I am saying is what happens if a ramp dominator can stack from the top of the ramp while blocking the ramp. I know a ramp blocker isn't going to go around and stack boxes but what happens if it has a cherry picking device that can reach both scoring zones and just manipulates the totes with its long arm. This might not be a winning qualification strategy but it sounds like a good elimination round strategy.

yeah right. How are you going to find a way to extend 11 feet, anchor yourself, and then after that have a 20 foot arm that can reach to either side. There is no way youd fit all this in the size restraints, as well as weight restraints
[edit] why would your strategy change from quals. to elims. the game does not change like last year, you still want your score to be close to the other alli's.



Cory

Wall Bots...
 

I've got 2 words for every wall bot out there...

Midfield Collisions...

Maybe the answer isn't as clear cut as you think it is.

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

I agree with Cory on this one, back in 2000 you could attach to the upper bar and the lower part of the ramp for stability. I don't think that any RampBot will be invinible this year seeing some of the drivetrains I have seen already.

How well can you stack if your robot is invisible?

It appears that the main argument against the ramp-dom is the fact that his partner will be fighting a 2 on 1 battle. This won't be much of a problem. The ramp-dom already has an advantage his team has 29 boxes(the wall) in scoring position at the start of the match. The 2 oppsoing bots have to move those out of positon and onto there side, then stack them. All the ramp-doms ally has to do is knock 8 boxes out of scoring positon then start to defend the side alleys. He doesn't have to go onto his side to do anything.

I'm not saying that there won't be amazing stackers or bots that I haven't even conceived of there but the ramo-dom will be a key player. Stackers that can low-ride and move 6+ boxes over the bar(all at once) could pose a danger to a ramp-dom. Cranes with a huge reach could pose a minor danger but unless they can move more than a box at a time it will take them to much time. Bots that can toss the crates would be fun to watch and are a real danger but they'd have to toss them 12ft+.

Yes, i was referring to the Black balls from 2000.

Ummm Strategy... or Psychology
 

well i don't think it would be 2 Vs. 1

simple reason if the past of wut ive seen ... this is all based on wut i see most teams scout around and find out that in there next matches they see a really strong robot.. lets say a ramp dominator... for the rest of the time the team dedicates themself to figuring out how to stop or counter the strong robot... so let say im on the hill and im not coming down for that match my opponents would be tugging at me to get away.. and kinda forgetting about my partner... making an 1 vs. 1 Match lol and it might even be worst if the opposing alliance thinks they got a chance they might dedicate all the robots to getting the strong one down .. and it be a 1Vs 0 match up where my partner going around the field doing wut ever to win

this is just an observation really but from wut i see most teams seem to be hungry to take the strong down.. not always a good strategy

Speaking from my experiance with MOE last year, I would not count on being immovable. We thought that we could do it, and it worked some of the time, but when push comes to shove, the good robots WILL move you. This is especially true if this is all that they can do. They will pound on you for 2 minutes, and 2 minutes is a very long time; repeated pounding will bend and break parts, allowing you to be moved. And now you are talking about attaching yourselves to a slick HDPE surface, and it couldn't even be done with filecards on Carpet. If you guys really thing that rampbots will rule the game, I think your in for a surprise.

I would speculate that any robot worth its weight where defending the top of the ramp is concerned will not be the first one on top.

If you're strong enough to withstand an onslaught while sitting on the HDPE, with wings extending out each side or something, you're also strong enough to muscle your way up top whenever you'd like, I'd say.

During the autonomous period, I don't believe we'll see terribly many robots that can line up with the ramp, center themselves, extend wings *and* plant. There's a bit too much that can happen there to make it go all wrong.

With that said, I'd argue that assuming a ramp-dominating robot automatically gains possession of the 29 bins that sit atop the ramp is very, very flawed thinking.

I like this game. There's no single strategy or robot type that is utterly immune to any other combination of strategies and robot types. You can't design a machine that wins this game. You have to design a strategy that wins.

Any one that can interrupt your game plan is a good bot... king of the hill or just hill blocker have the potential to mess up anyone and everyones plans for stacking and getting alot of bins to the right places... the big counter toward theses massive threats is your tiny short under-bar bots.... with some speed and lot of agility those guys have good chance to be favorite among the teams

there nothing flawed about it.. when you think king of the hill you think planted there... but i think massive road block and time wasting annoyence...even tho there jobs to stay on top king of the hill bots will effect the game way more the can be imagined... just cuz there not moving doesnt mean there not playing

There is a possibility for everything Cory. Personally I know very little of what my team (TJ) is personally doing because of the distance I am apart from them. However, from other team members of different teams in the NH region I have heard of such arms and may at first it doesn't sound feasible but give it four weeks and you will find it quite easily done.

There is more than the HDPE. We have a design that anchors the robot and is hard to remove by hand.

How can you do anything witha box, a stack, or another robot if YOUR robot is invisible.

We have are robot hitting the top of the ramp in 4 seconds. we can knock down 4 of the 7 bin stacks. if your robot can not go under the bar you will have a hard time getting by. our robot will be stopped on the top edge of the ramp sideways. so if you can not push your way by you will be stuck on our side of the field.

we will be taking up 3 feet of the 12 foot ramp. if you do not know where we are going to be it will be hard to get by because being sideways we have very good traction on the ramp.


The best way to defend the top of the ramp is being on the side of the ramp.

if a robot does get to the top of the ramp faster and locks down beware of the power of the other robots. about 10% of the robots out there will have pure power. and they put everything into having power. so I hope you uses steel becuase anything else will bend.

You defend the ramp- ok- you get 25 lousy points... happy?

Remember that if you swoop around and block the ramp, your opponents' robots will be stuck onyour yes, your side of the ramp. Your partner will also be stuck on the opponents' side of the rampp. (assuming you went up the ramp first)

Thus, if your opponents cannot go under the bar, they'll make sure you get zero points from stacking. Remember visibility will be a problem, so they'll go crazy in the zone. If your teammate similarly can't go under, you're out of luck... You can never win with this strategy- the playoffs will bring strong, fast robots which can easily transport crates over the bar, as well as push you around..

they could take all the crates they want that will give you 29 points

two robot on top gives 50 points if you think you can stack from our side to your side go ahead and try.

I am just saying controlling who goes over and who doesn't will win the game at the end.

OK let me get this straight if I'm on the top of the ramp with 25 "lousy" points. The opponents bots can't low ride and knock all(hard to do because of visabilty) the crates out of the zone. My alliance partner forgot to plug in the battery and is dead. So your human player stacks are undisturbed. You get 4 stack * 4 on the floor = 16. I get 25 plus whatever you miss. My 25 "lousy" points WIN.

Since finals will be all about low-riding thsi won't happen but you gave me the scenario AngryDaisy. It could happen in Qualifying, but so could 4 ramp-doms.

As for finals there will probobly be the combo of Ramp-Dom and Stacker. So whoever gets there first and knocks over the crates will win.

I will say it one last time. How can you do anything if your robot is invisible?

It's not like the entire field is blocked. Just add a very large flexible flag to your robot- like a corner flag on a soccer field. Presto!

You may need a 7-8 foot flag.

Now, this is all on the premise that none of the teams you are playing have the ability to move you. Teams repeatedly running up the ramp bashing into you for 2 minutes WILL move you. And for all of you planning on having wings, you better have a great pit crew and lots of spare parts. Because if you don't give the other alliance anything to do, they will just run into you for the whole 2 minutes. Believe me, it happened to us last year every match.

There's a solution for everything. Make a joint out of a spring and use a servo to release it.

hey dudes, you can stay on top of the ramp all day for all I care.
we've decided that it is much more efficient, instead of knocking down the enemy stacks during the autonomous period, to steal the largest stack and deposit it over the bar onto our side of the field. we will then go under the bar and start stacking everything.

give us 15 bins and 30 seconds and we will give you 56 points.

Teams with Wings
 

Being on the top of the hill will definitely be a key factor. Teams with a large wingspan had better be able to control the spinning factor that they are going to get with 3 130 pound robots smashing into them. Me, I would go for a lower profile with lots of power to be king of the hill.

Staying on top of the ramp if done correctly can be easy, first of all put your weight at the ends and you prevent most of the twisting. Second who says you have to be on the HDPE during the whole match, you just have to be on it at the end to get points. Why are 3 bots attacking it, if anything while the 2 opposing bots are attcking it the ramp-doms alliance partner are killing the opposing teams score.

Plane and simple. If a good ramp-dom hits the wall and plants then stackers are in big trouble. The ramp-dom can slow down any movement across the field(bots and boxes).

-Solace

Give me a bot that can move and 5 seconds and I'll make your 56 into 15.

assuming of course that they dont have awesome traction and can defend their stack.. It IS possible you realize to keep a stack frombeing knocked over.

I would think planting yourself on the wire mesh would also be very risky. You can't stick anything through it, and if transfer too much energy to that wire mesh, you will bend it, resulting in a possible DQ.

Also...if you have a smaller robot with a lot of traction playing king of the hill, how are you going to stop 2 robots running up at the same time on opposite sides of the ramp?

actually, we just carry our stack around with us. So yeah, you can know it over, but you'll have to knock us over with it.

Do you remember how tough the file cards were on the carpet last year? Well, my team found a material that is ever harder to move on the hdpe.

:)

Yeah errrmmm a large push from any robot should give enough force to knock any stack over considering how precarious it will be.
I would like to see the material because hdpe has the traction of ice.

I must concur with previous assessments of anchoring to the mesh: bad idea, most likely a DQ waiting to happen. If a ramp dominator could be effective, it'd be a major advantage I agree... It's just going to be a slaughter of anyone who does. 130lbs robot moving around 16fps results in you being dethroned eventually (most likely in multiple pieces). Also while you're up there it is two on one. A decent stacker can put up enough to beat you while his buddy keeps your partner busy.

We remember we broke the robot that had them. They try to stop us and they lost there arm and cable.


power is still going to be the big deal this year. not how much you can stick to the ground.

You all seem to believe that your way of doing things is the only way to do things. Your strategies are limited, as they're based on enormously flawed assumptions about the capabilities and strategy of other robots.

There isn't any way a robot can win this game, reliably, by perching itself atop the ramp and sitting there for two minutes. There are just too many variables.

You may have great success in qualifying rounds, of course, since the alliance pairings are at random. But, if you think that you're immune to defeat because you can park your robot on the ramp, I think you'll find that you're wrong. Alliances will construct themselves in such a way as to bring you down. That's a fact of life.

If your robot occupies all 48 ft. sq. of the HDPE surface and does so with strength and immobility, there is no incentive for the opposition to deposit any stacks until the final moments of the game. Where robots that can hold entire stacks at a time are involved, you will not have any success in knocking over their stack. If, by that, the scores become close, or your opponent's overtake you, what other contingencies do you have?

If a ramp blocking robot allows their alliance partner onto the HDPE for an additional 25 pts., beyond taking a great risk of losing all of their points, they relinquish their control of that surface.

There will be robots in this competition that do stuff you didn't even think of, and they'll do it faster and more reliably than you ever thought possible. By parking yourself atop the ramp, you're setting yourself to do nothing more than be a spectator to these amazing machines.

amen to that

So did we,


every peice of our bot that touches the HDPE will have this special rubber we found in a catalog, excluding our tires. be prepared for a fight on the bridge


bad

I couldn't have put it any better myself.


No doubt that stacking robots will win the game.

Everyone thought goal robots would win last year. Who won the national championship? 173. A ball robot, using balls, against an alliance of excellent goal-only robots.


A better strategy always defeats a better bot.

It pains me to point out the obvious but yes Strategy will always defeat the better bot. However, this also applies for the stacker bots. Unless you are a robot that can move multiple boxs over the bar all at the same time then you are making a major assumption that there is going to be bins on your side of the playing field. Now you may say that well there is just going to have to be no one can get all of those boxs in the first four seconds into their scoring zone!!! As for last year it wasn't all about ball grabbers. Finals were determined by a ball grabber and a strong goal grabber. When Team Hammond broke down and RAGE and Team 66? won, the strategy plainly was Rage would pick up balls while Team 66 made sure RAGE was free to do what it wanted to do. This game is all about strategy. This year its about stackers vs. kings of the hill only the best will survive. Oh one more thing what happens if there are HYBRIDS?
Muahahahaahahahahahahhaha

Every year there are amazing bots that are unique. But stacks are too vulverable. Even if you carry a stack at some point you have to deposit it. While you carry the stack your more top-heavy and you can't get under the bar(yes i know a unique bot could pass the boxes over the bar). If you plan on carrying a stack on 10 around your gonna have a nice chunk of your bot up high when you deposit it and if any bot hits you while your that high theres a good chance you'll tip. True a ramp-dom can't win alone but it is a key bot and the well done ones will be amazing in the finals. Also ramp-doms lead to low scoring matches so they will be low in qualifying not high. There usefullness comes from keeping the opponents score low so they'll be good in finals.

There is a relatively common material that sticks to HDPE like glue. If you think you can dislodge a bot because it will slide think again.

I'm not at all saying stackers will be useless in fact there the other half of a ramp-dom stacker pair. But some people think that ramp-doms do nothing for 2 minuts, In fact they control the center of the field.

Well... we went for a sorta bulldozer/rampdom bot this year... two 4 foot arms protrude from our robot's sides... made out of a single piece of 1x1 extruded aluminum (!) Noo.... it won't break.... we've been using the pieces to pick the robot up AND whale on some metal with... They've got these cool little cross-pieces which make it look like an x-wing...
Our bot weighs about 130 lbs... it's doing well.
It takes about 700N to twist our bot with NO compensation from the drivetrain... YAY!
Oh... and if you can move your walls (retract, raise, what have you) then you have complete control over the field... you can still go block the sides if it's that much of a problem.
And swinging piece of metal is great at hitting those nice, tall stacks.
SPIN LIKE A WHIRLING DERVISH!

Every body is talking about these robots with arms or what not acting as a ramp-dom but what about a team that had little extentions that were left behind to guard the ramp while the robot could freely move about :confused:

You can't intentionally detach pieces.

Yeah you can as long as you are still attached to the pieces that you left behind

Can someone please please tell me why all these people think the game changes from Qualification rounds to the finals? The game *does not* change like last year. You do not want to mutilate your opponent. you want to still ideally have one more point than them.

Cory

That would be because in the finals you can pick the partner that best suits your strategy.

First of all you'd have to be tethered to your detacheable wall, and then they'd probobly rule it as an intanglement hazard. The gameplay may be the same in qualifying and finals but the strategy is different. In qualifying you want high scoring close rounds. In finals you want to win.

If a team could go into each round and score 50 points but gaurantee the oppoing alliance was shutout they would do bad in QP. Probobly near last, but in finals they would rock.

Why not mutilate them? If you win 100-0 and then again 100-0 you still win just like last year.

You don't want to get the max amount of points, like qualifying, you just want to get more points than your apponent.

Just like last year if you win both of the matches, you win. The only difference is that playoffs will be shortened because there is no option of a third match.

If you really go back and look at the number of playoff rounds that went 3 matches, I would say it's about 10%.

So for those other 90% of playoff matches, essentially everything is the same.

Power Meets Strategy
 

two # 60 and 71.. these heavy weight dominate every other round with there over powering assault of sheer robotic prowess.... these are the best example of power concentrated in a theoretically flawed and easy counter-able strategy's.. yet how many out there did do well again ts these two

the point is that theses guys didn't do much besides there assigned jobs.. yet there power and skill make huge differences in the balance of power and i think no one can argue that.. there partner did well also but there presence made everything possible... ram dominator's well not do everything but they do much...they will interfere and even disable many strategy's.. no one should assume there the key to win but most good alliances every where will include a great ramp dominator...

Bin collector will be great also... but they wont have as much impact on the field as the dominator's...

Or how about beat them by a little and have around a hundred point lead going into the next match? Then all you have to do is keep the score low and not even care about winning. A defensive strategy means you have to win everytime. A good offense means you may have to win only half the time.

My thoughts exactly, a stacker that can muscle up on the ramp when it wants...

hmmmmmmmmmm............. Might this be indicative of what rage is cooking up this year?



I would like to say that every single one of our finals matches last year, in all the competitions we attended, went for three rounds.

Not that we actually won any of those matches......(grrrrrrr!!!!!)

One would be inclined to think so, huh? You'll know by Saturday.. ;)

If you think about it: as long as you expand to about 8 feet, you don't leave enough room on either side for a robot to fit through.

Why 11.5 feet? The extra few feet seem unnessasary to me.:confused:

All i gotta say is you better watch out for us...
our arms are 10 feet wide AND we can stack...
We just have to build it first...
-Andy

Ok, team #753's fearless leader is a physics teacher, which has led to far more calculation and scrutiny towards everything than I think is ever due. But even though it's 4:12AM, I decided to figure out exactly what force is required for these winged king o' the hill robots. Assume 9 foot wings extending from center of gravity. Assume a high-traction track design with tracks at far corners of robot. Assume a robot can push with 100 lb of force. Said robot creates 10800 in-lb of torque on king robot (assuming center of gravity is pivot point). Corners of the track are 23.43 inches from center of gravity. To prevent the passage of attacking robot, they must have a force of friction of 461 lb exerted at the far corners of the robot. Now, to get that level of friction you'd need two suction cups that can exert 150 lb two (probably opposite) corners and have a 130 lb robot and have a coefficient of friction for both the suction cups and tracks of about 1.07. I don't think I did my math right, so am I missing something? King of the hill robots just seem silly to me if they have huge wings to prevent passage. Add to that the fact that your wings and mounts have to be able to withstand such a huge level of punishment.
Please, someone tell me I'm wrong. :confused:

I applaud the use of actual physics but there are some things you're leaving out. The robots don't pivit around the center of gravity because of the wheels, also because the wheels are not in the same plane as the wing it changing the calculations further. Also any breaking device at the tips would have more "leverage." Now suction cups are designed to exert a holding force not necessarly a side load. Alot of suction cups slide easily. So in order to stay on the ramp its best to put the weight of the bot at the tips rather than the center. That way they would acheive the most leverage." So if you could put 130 of bot at the tips of a 9 foot long winged bot, it would be hard to push.

There are other things involved too, team 179bots swamp thing has a ramp to block the ramp, robots will hit the ramp and drive up it, they will increase the traction swamp thing has as they try to push him off.

Sigh
 

Okay, I see there are several key disadvantages to ramp control robots. Now, considering no-one, as of RIGHT NOW, knows who their alliance partner is, they can only set up effective one-on-one scenarios. Now, to pair up the two types being discussed here. Robot A is your ramp dominator. Robot B is your stacker that can fit under the bar. Robot A goes and perches atop the ramp. 25 points, preventing 25 points. Provided two bins are either transported from the opposing side to Robot B's side or fall fromt he center stack, Robot B now has 25 points and probably a lot of time to move all the bins from Robot A's side. This is disadvantage #1. Disadvantage #2 is the case that a robot can get on a small space on the ramp, getting the 25 points anyways. Disadvantage #3 is that robot is relying on being the best KOTH robot out there. If there is a better one, that team loses. End of story. It is not a dynamic enough system to avoid fate. Either it will win or it will lose in a one-on-one matchup. That is relying too much on the robot and not enough on strategy. I don't remember who said it, but good strategy will always beat a good robot, and there is no dynamic strategy to a KOTH robot. Sure, controlling the ramp is nice, but you cannot bank on being better than the competition, because everyone in FIRST has the possibility of creating something incredible. Oh yeah, and on that Mountain Dew bet, I'm changing. I think SPEED is going to win matches!

to late to do now but the idea of using a ramp to block could be cool, imagine a ramp bot with ball bearings on the top, let the opponent roll up you, then watch them roll back down, now that would be evil :yikes: :ahh: :eek:

Or, watch them stop on top of you as your strategy becomes pointless and they get 25 points anyway ;)

stop on a fairly steep ramp with ball bearings on it, that would be an interesting trick