Why was stacking so hard?
 

Why was stacking so hard?

look for our pick 1089 we stack pritty well.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=18394

Not hard, but time consuming and too easily toppled.

o because there are ways to prevent robot attacks on stacks and also it only takes 40 secounds to stack 5

40 seconds to make a stack of 5 which is toppled 5 seconds later. In the mean time, the enemy has had 40 seconds of pushing your bins into the neutral zone.

Protect the stack? If you can that's great, but chances are, as seen this past weekend, you wont.

Alot of stacking bots had trouble stacking bins that were'nt upright because the main set of bins is on the ramp, and most bots knock them down into their zone. Alot of teams that didn't set the bins upright had troubles. Teams w/ Stackers, you might want to find a quick way at competition to set bins upright...

THose who have been paired with us know our top secret winnign stratagie but a hint is human stacking and the king of the hill. Box stacking is great is you can protect while stacking.

it isn't that hard. Our teams main strategy is a stacker, and we were one of the few teams that consistently did it in cleveland.

It hard, but it doesn't take that much time if you have a good mechanism to do it.

I still predict that it will become more prevelant as the season progresses.

The problem with stacking is trying to orient yourself to be lined up with the boxes. It's easy enough to do it when you have 5 scattered about all right side up. Try and imagine doing it with 30 boxes pressed close together with 80% on their sides or upsidedown. Unless you have an awesome driver and great luck, stacking is something that is usually useless in a 2v2 match.

The best thing you can try and do is not overestimate your robot. Know it's abilities, and if it doesn't have what it takes cope and figure out a new strategy.

At least in the quarter finals at St Louis, no stacks survived until the end of the match. If the stack survived it proved to be very useful, but that is a really big IF.

Lineing up isn't always an issue.

And i think DJ has a good point, protecting stacks will be more important than building them in finals matches. but if they do get destroyed and you can build them fast and effectively then thats a huge bonus.

having a robot that can make many stacks of 3 or 4 quickly would be the ideal method to protecting your stacks. i agree that stacking will start to play a major roll as time goes on, it will probably be very important down at nationals to beat the best king of the hill bots in finals

I think it will come into play heavilly against rampdoms. That is the only situation I can see where it would be a consistently dominant strategy.

at VCU, team 435 was a very good stacker. they took human player stacks of four, and could stack those on top of upright bins. it was very impressive, and they managed to turn a stack of 4 into a stack of 6 and defend it. beautiful....

stacking is all about timing......we can stack a stack of 4 consistently, then hold it till a few seconds left and drop it (since the fix we have had no dropping problems) also we have a method of bringing in boxes that are up to 45 degrees off line with the robot very easily, and we can righten boxes.....although I think that stacking alone can not be your whole strategy because of how easy it is to get knocked over, but if you can protect your stack then stacking is worth it......

I also have a theory on why many teams stacker's are not working well, and that is the fact that they arn't protecting the stack as they stack they are just putting one on top of another and so on.....and so far most of the successfully robots are enclosed stacking devices.....as time goes on I think that everyone will realized that stacker's are important; probably more then the king of the hill and that a successful stacker, paired with a good "tank" will do very well in this game..

to see our bot in action go to team soap's webpage and download match 79 from the buckeye........

See you all at nationals........
______________________________
www.bausch.com/usfirst

Stacking was difficult for me mostly because all of the other boxes were on their sides and the box on top would just fall off. Though successfully defending a stack is a lot more satisfying than successfully building a stack.

There are many elements to being a good stacker. My team is still far from a good stacker (although we were closer then any other team at cleveland :p)

1) you must have bins to stack with, so either you or your partner must have a good autonomous mode.

2) you must have some way to get those bins upright, and quickly

3) you must have some way to pick up boxes that are not lined up perfectly with your robot (most internal stackers have this problem)

4) you must be able to accurately place the box on another (most arms have this problem)

5) you must be able to protect your stack for the majority of the match.

6) you must have the traction and driver skill to do all this while being harassed.

There are probably a lot more, too. Our robot is deficient in several of those. The best video that I have seen of our robot stacking in real competition conditions is qf1m2 from soap (10mb) http://www.soap108.com/2003/movies/oh/oh_qf1m2.asf also good to note that we lost that match. In fact we lost most of the matches where we stacked. So just because you can stack doesn't mean that you will do well or seed high.

I will be very interested to see how you guys do at competition.

stacks dont have to be upright to stack
we stacked one on its side on one upright cuz we rule!!! woo robots

But you didn't stack another on top of the one on it's side (and if you did...I'd really really like to see how).

A stack of two doesn't make you a very good stacker. To make a good stack you must do each of the things I said above at least once.

if you can quickly make 2-3 stacks of 3-4 boxes you will be successful. This can be done in a little over a minute and can be protected as long as necessary.

You can stack other way than upright and nest.

Personally I prefer upside-down, It is easy enough to do, they nest better and they stay up better than upright stacks.

well we did do all those things at some point or another...
maybe not protect but we had protecting arms that we can stick on that holds a stack of 4 firmly without any problem.

As far as stacking on top of a side one...i'm not sure but i think we threw one on top of one on its side with another next to it, this is till a stack.

GLR may prove stackers
 

Some of the teams going to the GLR are notoriously good at dealing with balls/floppies or whatever. GLR may prove that a good stacker may have what it takes to beat the KOTH 'Bots. I can't wait to see how the new HOTBOT deals with bins or how well 857 can grab and protect stacks. We will also have some pretty tough KOTH 'Bots, Truck Town as well as Wildstang. This regional will be exciting to say the least!! And those are only the teams I can think of off the top of my head. As was proven in Clevland, there are a lot of strong 1st, 2nd and 3rd year teams too!! Heck, we couldn't have won without 1126 and 541! What is neat about our alliance was the fact 1126 is in their rookie year, 541 in their 3rd and us, in our 7th year! Don't count out some of the new guys, they will suprise you!!

Why plan to make more than one stack at once. Make one large stack and defend it. It is nearly impossible to defend multiple stacks.

not enough time
 

FIRST did a good job designing the game and all but they didn't include enough time for stacking to be of any use at all. It's more a matter of getting boxes on your side, and king of the hill. Stacks are just a bonus.

As hard as it is to defend multiple stacks, it can be just as time consuming knocking down multiple stacks. By doing in double you keep a step ahead of the other robot. Anyway when you set up to try to defend your single precious stack, you are telling the other team to attack and knock it over. Keep quick and keep moving. It will pay off in the end. Anyway, they are just boxes whether they are scattered on the floor or if they are nicely stacked in columns. Not only will the field look prettier but the people preparing the next round will thank you for your generosity by giving them a several stacks to move onto the ramp instead of a scattered row of a failed attempt to build a monster stack. The boxes only stay stacked well when less than 4-5 and then they are a pushover. But that's just my opinion. I'll guess I'll learn in Houston.

Actually, I saw 73 at Cleveland, and would have to say you are not far from a good stacker at all. In fact, stacking would have overcome the KOTH if you had one more bin count in the second quarterfinals match.

Why was stacking so hard? Like most people have been saying, there is not enough time to do it. Even team 435 who did stack boxes successfully and defended it, took a considerable amount of time doing so. Though they defended it, I'm sure if they were up against a fast and agile robot(or a good driver), that stack could have easily been destroyed. Stacks do matter, there is no question about that. The problem is making them in the frenzy of a match. Some one else also said that other robots in that time could be doing anything. By taking time out to make a stack, you are leaving your alliance partner out there against two other robots. To blow that situation out of scale - that's like trying to make a tower of cards while 25 toddlers(little kids) run around you in a small room.

I will also say that our team did well (623 - Ohm Boyz - Oakton High School - VCU Regionals) did well without being able to stack anything for crap. We got as far as we did with a great human player, and a controllable robot that could push other robots around and knock over stacks.

In my opinion, making a stacker robot is sort of like trying to get up a hill, but if you dont make it, you will fall off completely and be further away from the top than those who never tried to make it in the first place. I think it would take an incredible amount of engineering experience/creativity/design and planning to make a stacker robot overcome all of the challenges of stacking during a live match.

I know that our team took lots of time to stack the boxes (we being 435), but what else are you going to do with the time? just run around and then the go for the hill? instead of running around we stacked, and in our last round we had a small, agile robot pushing us and still managed to make a 3 stack from nothing, and we still had time to fight for the ramp (props go out to grundy for that little fight there and for winning the chairman's award!). with a good robot stacking works - you just have to be willing to commit to it.

This game points out a fundamental truth: It is far easier to destroy something than it is to create it.

Stack attackers are working with the second law of thermodynamics on their side while stackers aren't.

One of the problems is that with three rather powerful pairs of motors in the kit (CIM, drill & FP), robots have too much power available for a drive system. Many robots can get from one side of the field to the other in about 5-7 seconds (under the bar - add a couple of seconds to go over the ramp).

In Sacramento our driver left the top of the ramp to go into the opponent's scoring zone, knock over a stack and return to the top of the hill. Total time: less than 10 seconds. (And our robot doesn't shift.)

I'd like to see more stacking, but the speed of attackers simply doesn't make it very practical. My suggestion to FIRST for next year: drop some of the more powerful motors, double the amount of pneumatics.

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599
RoboDox

I figure most bots could knock down every undefended stack in scoring zone in less than 10 sec. A bot would have to be incredibly good at stacking to make one stack of 3 in 10 sec.

Internal stackers like 73 have the best chance to defend a stack (#5 on Joe's List) because the stack is supported by their bot while they are stacking, so only one stack needs to be made. They can wait for a safe moment near the end of the match to place the stack.

External stackers will probably have difficulty defending stacks, so maybe constantly making small stacks is the best strategy for them (depends on stacking speed). Since external stackers usally have to leave the stack undefended to find another box, a new stack of 2 might be all that is left at the end of the match.

Overall I think only about 30 bots (mostly internal stackers, sorry external guys) will become consistent stacker by nationals. By consistently stack i mean stack and defend a stack of 3 or more in over half of thier matches. A select few great stackers (maybe not that good at first regional) will be the top seeds b/c thier qp potential is so high. Imagine just letting ur opponent have the 50pts on the hill b/c u have 70pts on the floor. In the elims these stackers will have superior ability to come back in the 2nd round or run away with match in the 1st b/c they can score more points than their opponents ever can.

Stacking takes commitment
 

If you are an internal stacking planning on protecting a stack and set it down at the last minute while others are fighting for the KOH, you will need to stack at least five boxes to consistently win without KOH points. While my external stack can make several stacks of multiple boxes, not defend them and get the 25 points on top. If we lose all the stacks we still will win.

As mentioned above time is everything. Some choose to stack and move boxes into scoring areas during time, raising the game score. While some choose to attack the other teams boxes lowering the score.

With expecting to leave stacks undefended you make the other team make a choice. With 10 seconds left do they attack the stack of 5 or do they jet to the ramp. Either they gain points at the ramp and possibly win, if they can get past us, or they attack the stack and knock it down. But they still lose, we have 25 points they didn't get. And they didn't get a chance to finish off the stack of two we had. Stacker wins.

I know stacking will be difficult, we practiced for nearly two weeks with all of the bins. It can be done effectively if you can commit to it. I know I am but I still have to convince some of my less faithful team members.

because it takes so long to stack and keep it protected. and it doesn't take as long to knock it down.:ahh:

GeroniMOE on stacking
 

I hope GeroniMOE's performance in Annapolis has given anyone watching the competition (live or NASA TV) a new look on stacking. The main problem with stacking is the orientation of boxes. Many bots can't right the boxes at all or can only right boxes on thier side. Righting the boxes takes up the majority of any stacker's time since actually lifting the boxes usually takes only a few seconds for most stackers. GeroniMOE can right a box in any orientation with a quick effiecient poke/pull mechanism.

During the a seeding match 66 against Teams 810 and 486, GeroniMOE internally stacked 5-6 boxes. However, while we were evading the mech bulls we forgot to drop the stack as time ran out. A match that shows stacking can be effective in elims is our second semifinal match http://www.soap108.com/2003/movies/md/md_sf2m2.asf
as our stack of 4 allowed us to come back from a major first round deficit and advance to Finals.

Most of the time our stacker was ineffective due to minor difficulties which we worked out. Our stacker got much better with time as I hope all stackers will. I belive all stackers will get much better by nats (maybe not the 30 teams I said before), but only if teams keep trying to stack. I believe that many teams can impliment (or have implimented) an effective box righter, but that is not enough. Teams have to try to stack in competition so thier drivers can gain the awareness needed to make quick stacking decisions. Dan-o and Vince (our drivers) learned quickly and became an incredibly skilled at stacking despite thier relative in experience in competions (both are new drivers). So good luck to all you stackers out there. Keep stacking and u can succeed.

MOE was awesome. I watched the matches on the webcast, and you guys perfomed well. I saw some great plays.

The internal stackers like MOE have the best chance of successful stacking. My only concern with this kind of bot is the high CG.

The problem with stacking is there are easier ways to win. It's just the way the game was designed. Stackers will get better as time goes, but so will the stack bashers.

Moe wouldnt have won that game if our team (686 - Bovine Intervention- The cow team) didnt have a wire come loose. the whole match was then 2v1.

no big deal tho, we will do even better in NJ

MOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Why stacking is difficult
 

The main reason that stacking is difficult is because the game usually doesn't encourage it. It is just too easy to win by disrupting the opponents scoring possibilities. Personally, I find the human player penalty (no autonomous) ridiculous. Give the human player 15 seconds to set their bins, and at that point any bins not already placed on the field are removed for that game. Give all teams the opportunity to play autonomously without risking the human player falling down because they are hustling to get back to a pad. Then allow a certain period of time to create havoc on the opponents side of the field (about 60 - 75 seconds), after which the robots have to either mount the ramp or return to their own side of the field. Having distinct periods for defensive maneuvers and offensive maneuvers would allow more bots to show their own distinctive elegance. There were many bots at the Chesapeake who had stacking capabilities, which I would have loved to see in operation; but, with the structure of the game as it is, they had no opportunity to display them and still have a chance of winning. Our bot, GeroniMOE, won not only by stacking, but by adapting to the changing play of each match. <<Big KUDOS to our competition team!!!>> If you watch the semi-final match http://www.soap108.com/2003/movies/md/md_sf2m2.asf you will see it takes time to build a stack, but you don't see the opponents bot (team 1027) that leaves the bridge almost knocks down the stack that allowed the victory. They hit it just as time expired, and the entire arena held their breath as we all watched the stack wiggle and finally stay upright. Too easy to destroy, much more challenging to build. Luckily, GeroniMOE is a multifunctional bot, one of which is stacking.

2 Vs 1...
 

I believe it was 1 vs 1. But don't quote me on that, I wasnt there for the live match I was in the pits making a part, just watched the webcast and could've sworn 314 was out of it too, just becasue the announcer kept saying "Can the Miracle Workerz do it on their own?"...

Anyone who see the match know?

Re: 2 Vs 1...
 

I am pretty sure Big Mo (314) was shut down for going out of the playing field after they went under the bar so it was one on one. I havent seen anything on the feed to confirm this.

Big MO was shut down cause its wheels tocuhed the outside mat.

Great job though guys...

Gabe G.

most stacking bots could stack easily in practice before shipping...thats because they didnt have a clusterfuz of bins and bots freakign out

at the competition it is very hard to stack and keep it secure without getting befukxed


w

it was a one -v-one, i was on the field (volunteering: it was a lot of fun i might add) and i big mo was shut down, making it 1v1. besides, that's a rather speculative statement, something else could have gone amiss and moe could have still won. if you'll recall the qualifying rounds, moe won 3 matches 1v2 if i recall... i'm just calling it as i see it, i think moe had a fair chance, as did the cows.