Still not sure why our driver was trying to drive up 111? He did it once and realized it wasn't going to work, then did it again and got stuck (Not listening to the coach either). I am sure it would have been cool if we could have got over the wedge but the rear bumper was on the floor so we were stuck almost the whole match. The fact that they didn't drive forward says allot about team 111, they successfully guarded the stack and controlled that match. One thing though, you would be surprised how low our center of gravity it for a cage stacker, we haven't actually went over yet after 2 regionals, most caged stacker's have.

i liked your robot a lot. great design. i know that you know the importance of a low CG because you race a modified. we also have a very low CG, plus our articulating base also helps our stability.

if your drivers can adjust their driving techniques a little, your robot can be very effective and legal at the same time. they just have to use a little more patience and self control. if they can learn to back off a little if the other robot starts to get tipsy, you should be fine. as a driver, i know it is hard to back off and use patience and all the stuff i just said, but it may be neccasary in your situation.

i think many teams have to realize that this is a contact sport and that their robot will take hard hits. they need to learn the importance of a low center of gravity, or have a self-righting mechanism.

good luck in texas!

you have to love the articulating chassis's. So far I've only seen two though - ours and 271. Does anyone else have one?

The coolest thing about articulation is that it helps keep at least the back wheels on the ground if the front ones are lifted by another robot. I remember when we almost got tipped by BUZZ 175 at UTC, but the back axle pivoted to match the ground instead of lifting up, so we were able to remain upright. As soon as you catch the back of of your chassis on the carpet though, its all over.

In regards to hitting someone with our wedge lifted, after we got d'qd in the matches following that one we did hit people w/ the wedge lifted. But with it lifted it led to us being flipped over or ontop of the ramp it just made us go on top of other robots instead of hit them so it wasnt good for us. We did the best we could and we are doing driver training as i write this to get the drivers better w/ the flipping issue. I am actually one of the operators i operate ours arms specifically.

My team had a wedge, but since we had little room, we had it drop with a motor. It looked like a bot that could flip any bot with no problem, but we didn't design it that way. Surprisingly, we were not called for anything illegal, and i don't feel we should have. We never flipped anyone, and if we did, it wasn't intentional. It was a great design that could push around any bot we wanted to, but not flip. I feel that no team who has a wedge, designed it to flip robots, and only to use it to win pushing matches, so no wedge should be DQ'ed unless it is a blatant attempt to flip someone.

If...
 

But if you have a wedge and are at the King of the Hill position if you stand there and another team trys to ram you it isn't your fault to my understanding. But it sux that ya got DQed.

Tippy
 

One of my criticism during the early phases of building Tippy the Wonder MOEbot (also know as GeroniMOE) was: teams would intentionally flip us every match as part of their strategy and the refs would do nothing. I have to give the general FIRST community credit because my pessimistic prediction did not come true in Annapolis.

GeroniMOE tipped about 4 times (1 in final match 2) in competition. All of these flips were done on the ramp where we are obviously very vulnerable to flipping (the Wheelie Bars are effective on the flat). Only once was the tipping really forced by a two bot attack but it was not malicious. In the finals, Cory, Sparky and Spartechs did nothing to make us tip. The spectacular fall at the end of Finals match 2 was just Dan-o (our driver) being a little overzealous in his attempt to pull another comeback out of his green sequined hat. He did a great job controlling that crazy bot.

I guess my pessimism about other bots' lack of GP about intentionally tipping bots was probably based around MOEhawk's experience last year. Many bots would do anything they could to maliciously destroy MOEhawk, repeatedly ramming into structural points while ignoring the goals. Bots were never DQed for that and instead we were probably DQed more than any other bot. I predicted bots would do that as soon as the concept for a 3 goal grabber was proposed last year and I was right. I

had every reason to believe that I would be right about Toro BattleBot Clones running around flipping both opponent and doing a victory dance on the top of the ramp. So far I have been wrong and I hope it stays that way. Stay Graciously Professional about flipping bot by showing restraint. This year's game has a giant ramp so some bots (even with low cg) flipping over is inevitable.

Is the wedge is more than a simple wedge ?
 

Doesn't your wedge have a flipping action to it, where it could get under something and then flip it over?

If you do have this ability, on top of being a wedge, it looks like a design that would be used to flip other robots. I guess it could be used to flip over stacks but once you drove the wedge into them, but they would fall anyway, so why the flipping motion?

Please understand that I'm not saying you intend to flip other bots, nor am I saying you should or should not have been DQ'ed, but if the wedge has a flipping action, and from the shape of the wedge, it could easily give the appearance of being a robot flipper.

If I'm mistaken about the flipping action, and it's just a wedge, then, as others had stated, I would suggest you need to be careful how you use it.

See you in Houston!!!

Regards,
Scott358

The flipper action was necessary to get on the ramp, otherwise the wedge would get stuck under the mesh(we did that once, DUH), also to bring the robot to legal length(too long with the flipper down)

Our intent was never to flip other robots, only to gain a pushing advantage. As a matter of fact, our driver had instructions to right any robot that was upset, regardless of team (If time allowed).

We have a new design that should not put us at a disadvantage. :D

Well, lets me see. We, as a team, haven't used this method. In fact, it never occured to me.... hmm... (I feel like I've been under a rock... >.<). Anyway, I had no idea this was going on, either. In fact, if it was, then one of our matches might have ended differently.

At the Phoenix Regional, we played against team 989, a small, wooden wedge bot. They had us up against walls, and (well it looked to me) like they were trying to tip us. BUT, as their opponent, I can say that it was an awesome match. It was kind of neat to see such a small robot overcome ours (which is HUGE).

So, as a person who was opposed to a robot like this, I would like to say that I think that it's all part of the game. It is a good strategy, and even though FIRST might not agree, I commend you.

Amanda