Which Robot Do You Think should be King Of The Hill
 

Just out of Curiosity After myself seeing alot competitions and You the FIRST teams participating in them. Out of all the Robots this years teams made; Which Robot do you think should be King Of The Hill.

45

while we're on the topic, what other robots have effectively played that role at all?

I've only seen 229 work once, but I heard that they were having mechanical problems so they'll probably do better in the future.

I haven't seen 68 or 179, so I wouldn't know.

Are there any other teams out there that are even capable?

I've seen almost every one in action and it's 111 hands down.





btw...KOH isn't even 111's main function, but they better at it than any of the major KOH bots out their

Anyone at the Canadian or Great Lakes Regionals?

*cough* 783 *cough*

Altho granted we didn't play many of the good teams at the GLR (*thanks "random" matches*)

Traitor!

I'd have to say either 111 or 45.
Both are beautiful machines.

111 is definitely up there
 

111 is definitely at the top of my list for being one of the best robots to block other robots from getting to the top surface of the ramp. With out two robots actively seeking the top of the ramp, its hard for one robot to get it. I have been to both competitions that Wildstang has been this year and I keep hoping that a robot with a low enough CG rides up on them on top of the ramp. The ramp they deploy has to be at least a 45 degree angle relative to the carpet surface of the playing field. Great design!!! and good work on the GPS system you use!!!

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Unfortunately, being KOH isn't the only part of this competition. There are a lot of great robots out there this year. Team 101 Striker from St. Pat's has a little flying saucer that gave us a run for the money. If they were on first we couldn't get them off. Great driving as well.
As to "GPS" I wish! but no that is not what we use. Under the rules, no electronic component could be more that $100 dollars and we didn't see any GPS that cheap. Also we were unsure as to whether is would reliably read in proximity to all the metal of the robot or inside buildings. We struggled with a lot of ideas but fell back on Lego League experience and the simple approach. Know what way (and how much)you have turned and how far you have traveled and you will know where you are. Add to that a method of telling the robot where you want it to go and voila! it goes there. We are not the only ones using this method, many robots are looking at wheel rotation sensors and getting other feedback for positioning.

It is still really cool!!

I know team 68 uses rotations as well. Have you guys discovered how to calculate if you lose traction or if you are being pushed? Are you monitoring voltage draw? Also why do you guys use two light sensors on the same wheel? Do you guys have a problem with feedback time and the processor processing it fast enough? I guess I am just full of question for team 111 tonight... lol Great Bot as always

Yeah, but all that fancy equipment don't help a whole lot when you set the robot up backwards *grins*

Hehe... sorry, didn't mean any disrespect. For the people who don't know what I mean, in the semifinals of MR, Wildstangs bot ran straight into the midfield barrier during autonomous. I would assume they lined the bot up backwards so it thought it was going the other way...

IMO, it was this that allowed 16 to come back in the 2nd match and win.

at the Silicon Valley reg.. I'd have to say cheesy poof was pretty good at being KoH. I didn't watch that many so I can't remember any others..

60

I would guess they use 2 sensors per wheel so they can detect which way the wheel is turning. The sensors have to be offset though.

King of the Hill
 

111 definately has a great robot this (and every) year. We had some amazing battles with them at GLR - match # 47 in particular. We can't wait to see you guys at nationals!

Jeff Alpert
Team 469

While we never could claim "KING" of the hill. We learned at regionals that if we positioned ourselves sideways to an opponent, we were an immovable force on any surface.

It wasn't the worlds most exciting strategy, but we held our ground even with us on HDPE and Wildstang on the mesh. That semifinal was incredible! If Wildstang were to get three or four more good runs at us, they may have finally nudged us off the top.

Our Auton was reliable every time. Sensors as pulse counters on the wheels: Back up out of the starting box, slight turn to face the stack, GO!. When Auton ends, start defense. Maybe you could say that we were the PITA bot (Pain in the ...)

If you are a tall robot without Auton, we'd keep you in the box for the rest of the match. If you got out we'd make it difficult for you to get to where you want to go. Sometimes that means blocking out our side, sometimes that means that we keep you over on yours.

Like I said, not very exciting, but once we figured our our strengths, it worked well.

Thanks to 65 for picking us as an alliance partner and thanks to 16 for being such a great partner, too.

Re: Which Robot Do You Think should be King Of The Hill
 

229

Lot's of questions...
1. We use two sensors placed so that their outputs are 90 degrees apart. This allows you to get accurate counting and direction info. If you bump into something or get pushed, the info is still valid and the auto mode will try to correct.
2. We do not worry about traction or loss of grip with the floor. We observed that our wheel design kept a good grip on all surfaces and the system we use (Now known as StangPS or Stang Positioning System) was able to position the robot anywhere we tell it to go within + or - 6". If auto mode was for a longer duration or over vastly different surfaces we would have to rely on other methods of determining distance traveled.
3. We are not yet employing our StangeSense current monitoring although all of the electronics are there. We are doing so well on current draw that we can easily run three or four matches on a battery. (We don't tempt fate that much though.)
4. We use an outboard processor (HC08 at 9 MHz) on the custom circuit board. It takes input from the gyro, wheel sensors, steering sensors and produces commands for the RC.
5. We have a variety of preprogrammed auto runs, 11 of which are available to be selected from the operator interface. We are also working on a Palm Pilot interface which would allow us to draw on the Palm (overlay of the playing field) where we want the robot to go and then load that into the processor. We showed some of that system in our pit at Midwest Regional via video tape.
This is geting a little involved, I will leave it up to the moderators as to whether to channel this into it's own thread. See you all in Houston.

We did not line it up backwards.
Whether you meant it or not this comment was not appreciated. You clearly have no knowledge of what happened so please don't speculate.
Allowed 16 to come back? What on earth are you talking about? 16's alliance beat us in both matches. After the first match we were down 106 to 10.

522 is a great king of the hill bot. We were paired with them during the elim's at Philly. They are a fairly small bot with a great tread style drive train and a great driver. I have seen them wedge multiple opponents off of the top of the ramp on several occasions. Great bot!!!

Re: Which Robot Do You Think should be King Of The Hill
 

Which Robot do you think should be King Of The Hill.


45 showed they were king at Chicago along w/ 292 and 245

Yeah, that wasn't too impressive was it. I'm not quite sure what the cause of that was. There were rumors that it had missed it's first waypoint and drove back to get to it. Once it was back in the starting well it tried to drive in a straight line to the top of the ramp. This would cause the wheels to slip as it pushed against the side of the ramp. Thinking that it was at the top of the ramp, it drove to what it thought was the bottom of the ramp, when in reality it ran into the bar.

We need to do some more research, but if that was the case, we have a plan to fix it.

HAVE YOUR GUYS SEEN SWAMP THING!! It's scary. That's a king of the hill robot 4sho.

team 168 will not get pushed off the hill, but other bots can also join them up to

Overall I actually thought it was rather impressive. It was neat in one of the matches (qf's I think) to see the robot be able to sweep the entire stack area and knock down all the stacks and then go up the ramp and take out the wall. Ingenious design.


I was only pointing out that no system is impervious to imperfection. That flaw pointed out that the system still has errors.

Thanks, it was fun to watch it skim across the field. When we originally designed our waypoints for that program we had the wings deployed. We changed it to not unfold until we got to the ramp waypoint. That's the reason it missed the first stack. As soon as that happened we modified our waypoints to make sure that never happens again.

As does any evolving system ... and they always seems to fail at the most critical of times.

We take a lot of pride in StangPS and are extremely careful with our field setup and human player period to ensure it gets a chance to shine. I can guarantee you that at this point in the game that setup would be double, even triple, checked.

Well, I might be biased, but I like our robot. Once our feet are down we are pretty hard to move...

Another locking bot: 330. They stayed on pretty well.

Uhh... oh yeah! 980 was good, too

This is one area where our system really paid off. We designed that program during lunch after the alliance selection using our waypoint drawing program (WildDraw). We just plotted out a course on the field that we wanted to run and loaded it into the robot controller. We didn't even need to test it out. It worked almost perfectly. (Well, it worked perfectly in the sense that it went exactly where we told it to. It missed the first stack, but that was due to not setting a waypoint close enough to the wall). Those of us on the autonomous team were excited to finally run a new program other than just up and over the ramp.

team 168 baby

out of 800+ teams only 2 were speaken very highly of and this is coming after close to 19 regionals.

any other teams u think deserve the KOH title besides 111 and 45 .

During the elimination rounds, we gave 111 a run for their money in Great Lakes, and came out on top. We haven't played the Technocats yet, but can't wait too. We were sweating the elimination round with Wildstang, but scouting them all weekend payed off. Setting up a human player stack of four and being the first one to the bins threw them for a loop. We were able to park in front of the stack, successfully blocking 548. 111 had to stop what they were doing and come over to help try to knock over that stack. Our driver and machine held their ground, fending off 2 powerful robots, keeping the stack intact; winning the match. There are many ways to win this game. That's why it pays to scout effectively and have different strategies to throw people off. Having good drivers also makes a huge difference. Motorola, the Cats and 27 among many other teams have a second 'bot to practice with. Having the practice machine definitely helps the drivers fine tune their skill. You can easily beat 2 robots on the ramp with a stack of 4 and 15 bins in your zone. I mean absolutely no disrespect to 111 or the Cats. They are awesome machines! Both teams raise the bar for stellar engineering and incredible performance every year. Which means everyone else must do what they can to keep up. However, to say the KOTH's have the game all but won is a bit of a stretch.:cool:

111 and 27 certainly have great robots! I have not yet seen 45 live in action, so I can't wait for nationals.

Wildstang - are you going to have the wing we signed at GLR on display at nationals? That was a really great match, and we'd love to come and talk to you guys about everything that has happened since Great Lakes.

See you all in Houston!

Jeff Alpert
Team 469

Jeff,
I will ask, but I know that the sheet has already been replaced. (I feel cut every time I looked at it.) I think one of our drive team took it home to hang in his room.

favorite koth bots at canada and chesapeake have been:

188, 378

314, 306

all of your guys' bots rocked

good luck at nationals...too bad I wont see you there.

SO far I've only seen about 5 sole duty KoTH bots. 45, 68, 111, 179, and 229.

I'd rank them as follows.
1, 111---It's fast, it crabs, its a wedge.
2, 229---It floats, and its got big numbers.
3, 45-----More power than a bull
4, 179
5, 68

and heres why 45 and 111 spend plenty of time trying to defend HPS(human player stacks) as compared to just sitting on the hill. This definatly helps to boost there scores when they succeed. 45 and 68 don't use the all so common wedge design to deflect bots so they rely solely on power. 179 and 229 are both slow to the ramp which could hurt if someone suctions on first. 111 and 229 are impossible to get past if there on the top, because of 111's small width it may be possible for a bot to get bye if its teammate is also trying to get over the ramp.

Some people have posted numbers for stacker bots. Are we talking KoTH as any bot who can stay on top or a purpose built ramp controller.

60

Lest anyone conjecture as to our design...
The ramped wings that are part of the 111 design were done as defensive devices. It turned out that they nicely push bins in autonomous and shield well on defense of human player stacks too, but that came later.
Again, thanks for all the kind words.

I agree with your assessment based on our past performance.
Although, in my bot's defense: We have a high gear of 11 ft/s, but due to our drivetrain troubles at UTC, we never got to use it.

We should have a 4-5 sec autonomous by Friday in Houston.

Our performance will be primarily determined by whether our pit crew can work the bugs out fast enough.

Thank you for your compliment though!

new Idea
 

Hey i would like some feedback on this....

What about 292. Ya, i am the driver of the team so i have got to see what people think about us. We have never had a big name to get noticed by, but i thought that our performance this year would do that. We were at Buckeye, Great Lakes and Midwest. Out of all of these three regionals we were not on top of the ramp in 1 match. That one match we got tipped over. Does everybody just not know that. We were #1 seed at Great lakes, the largest Regional, and 1# seed again at Midwest. There we went on to win the entire thing. If i sound to boastfull, tell me and I will stop. Sorry for the rudeness.

45 and 111 are awesome bots. Loved picking each of them at the different regionals. See you guys in Houston.

Tyler - Driver (292)

Re: new Idea
 

Tyler,

I attended all three of those regionals and also AZ. I can say that your team has gotten the nickname from Truck Town of "The Genorator". Please don't take that negatively, it is not at all directed that way. As the coach of team 68, I know I can speak for myself as well as my brother, the driver, in saying that you are one of the teams that I look forward to working with on the field!!! I know we like working with both you and your coach, sorry to leave other team members out. I really wanted to get paired up with you or team 648 because of the connection that I feel I can get from the drivers and the coaches. I don't mean to leave teams out because I love working with a lot of the teams on the field. I just feel that both 292 and 648 cut to the chase telling what they are able to do and do well.

292 - I had looked forward to teaming up again with you at Nationals until this afternoon, when I discovered that you are in a different division. I wish you the best of luck at nationals and if you need anything please feel free to stop by team 68's pits.

Thanks
 

Thank you for your words Mark. They are good to here. Could you clear up the Nick name " The Generator". i dont see any negative thoughts with it, i just would like to know how you got it.


I love your robot. Truck has always been a fierce competitor and a wonderful ally. good luck with your bot at Nationals.

Well I was talking about all of the robots that have competed as of now this year. But it seems like even though the year isn't over two teams were pointed out as the most dominent KOTH robot. So being as it may out of 18+ regionals thus far I want u the FIRST teams to highlight the top 5 KOTH robots that u saw at the regionals u participated at! (this includes both stacker, dead wrecker, line tracker etc. robots) Base your decision on overall performance during the competition and the teams ability of keeping the opposing alliances off the hill.

This thread has been a very friendly one and I enjoy hearing all of your opinions. So as Always post freely but Keep It Clean


522 is my choice as an excellent KOTH robot. I have seen Team 522's robot in action at the NYC Regionals and in most of there matches if not all of them they have managed to prevent other robots from sitting on top of the hill. And this is due to there selected choice in drive train material & and that the Drivers of their robot have that "MAGICAL" touch to them. Excellent Job guys and I wish you much success in all of your upcoming Competitions.

Re: new Idea
 

Hey Tyler, a big name didn't get you to the top of the list on Saturday, a great robot and drivers did. You have a great team and bot and you proved it to everyone at Midwest. Too bad we weren't able to make it happen last week, you would have had two wins back to back. You certainly have our respect and admiration.

Re: Thanks
 

Sorry for not getting back with you sooner, being on campus, the computers wouldn't let me post to this forum for some reason. Anyways... the reason we call your robot the generator is because we just think it looks like one from the stands. I have had the pleasure of watching your robot approuch the field and based on this I can see where the rest of my team is getting this nickname from. From the big tires to the side panels, it just reminds some of use of a generator we hope to have on our big truck by nationals. Again I wish you the best of luck and it has been great working with your team during matches this year!!!

Mark

The Generator... intertesting Mark. I like it. I understand how you got that name for our bot now that i think about it. Good luck to you at nationals, and have a safe trips to Texas.

Today was the practice session at SoCal. One team truly took this year's game and saw endless possibilites. They won all their practice matches and while practice doesnt mean anything in the real competetion, it showed who would be a clear favorite to win the regional. Team 60 from Kingman was by far the most advanced and dominating bot I saw today. The sail idea worked to perfection along with an incredibly fast drive train (what did u guys use?) and a wonderful autonomous program that allows them to get to the hill, sail out in under 2 seconds. That bot was truly incredible. Props go to 599 for their incredible help with the First Aid station of parts along with a very well designed bot that will do great at the regional. Team 974 (hope I got your number right) or Nautae has an incredible wall smashing bot. If we get our bot working fully (stupid side loaded piston that we realized at 7:40 and didnt have time to fix) I see ourselves being a very good team, but of course we need to get it fully functioning. Good luck to all teams at SoCal and around the nation competing this week. Although we will not be in Houston for lack of funds I hope that all teams bots arrive safely there and that this years Nationals be the best yet.

Sorry about this, it loaded 3 times (really strange cause I hit the submit button once)

See above post

Well, my pick may be a little controversial in that they are not what is being referred to as a KOTH robot. I feel that KOTH does not mean that teams have the ability to block the entire ramp, but more that they have the ability to keep themselves on the ramp. For example, A team can block the entire ramp, but they might not be able to stay perfectly on the HDPE. A robot that can keeps itself on top, albeit not blocking others is far more valuable than a robot that can keep any points from being scored on the ramp.

With that said, here are my picks: Team 254, the Cheesy Poofs. They are always able to stay on top with their arms that anchor them on the mesh. I only saw them pushed one time, and even then they still stayed on top.

A robot can be indredibly good at KOTH just with a good strategy and a pretty powerful drivetrain. By powerful, I mean a robot with a good drill drivetrain or better. For example, we have a quite a bit of power for using drills, and we were almost always on the ramp when our robot was working, which wasnt very much at SVR, but very often at Sacramento.

Cory

I don't see any controversy whats so ever. All the question is really zooming in on is which team can control the Hill better whether its planting it self there, manuevering opposing alliances off the Hill, or Blocking the Hill all together. Heres what I got so far


111 and 45 are the top two choices so far as the best KOTH bots.

Now that the Nationals are just days away and Divisions were already divided & decided. Now the question is Of the teams in YOUR DIVISION which team(s) do u see as the most dominent KOTH.

Please do not post any replies to this question just yet b/c I'm posting this days early and I want to start getting feed back of this question after practice day so that it gives all the teams participating a fair chance to see what they will be up against.

Until then Keep replying to the Current Thread Question which is

WHICH ROBOT DO YOU THINK SHOULD BE King Of The Hill??

Good Luck to all this weeks Regional Competitors and Good Luck to all those that will be competing for the National Title.


Teedoff101 - there is a Delete Post option when u go to edit your messages. Try using that for when multiple posts happen. It works very well when those lil mistakes happen !!! - Good Luck To Your Team.

Hey Guerillas, Team 11 Driver here,

I do have the Wing that was signed, and I will be more then happy to bring it to nationals. You can take pride in your work while we hang in up. I hope we are two very successful teams in our division.

Best of Luck,
Allen Hoem

So guys after participating at the TX Nationals of 2003 You seen 293 Robots. Now the question is Which Do you Think Should Be King Of The Hill??





Congrads to all that won today and all those who participated

111 :yikes:

Grats guys, you have one hell of a robot! Glad to see you guys get a win, you deserved it... and you did it with style! First seed all the way, impressive :ahh:

Thanks so much. I'm was so happy to see our robot design strategy work in the end. Our mentors and students put so much time and effort into our robot this year, I'm happy the year concluded how it did.

And to team 469 and team 65, great job you guys. I have been driving for 3 years now, and you were my favorite alliance partners. Thank you for helping us go all the way.

And to all the other teams, great job at nationals to everyone. This was my last year, so i wish you all luck for the next year, and good luck to all the seniors!

45 and 292 are very good robots for that distinction.

111

got them swirves. =P

Hello
 

Hello i am from team 902. i don't meen to be rude or anything but this year we had a really strong robot. we never lost the ramp and were able to push any team off the ramp so far in Cleavland and grandrapids. so i think we have a chance of being one of the strongest bots out there. i don't meen to be well modest but well sorry if i offended any team.

Re: Which Robot Do You Think should be King Of The Hill
 

DUH!!!
Who put #47 on it's nose in both Archimedes Finals matches?
Who was on top whenever they wanted to be?
Who owned the top in the Championship Event?
Who won the thing?

A:
OneOneOne

King of the hill
 

1038 is the true king of the hill at nats. Once 1038's bot was on top of the ramp, there was nobody that could push them off.