"Playing Cheap"
 

After my first regional this year, I am kind of dissapointed with the way that some teams are playing. They either get up the ramp during autonomous or immediately after, and then hang. Serving no purpose other than an extra fifty points. I am really confused with the teams that have both alliance partners hang at once. It's not even a competition after that. The two robots are hogging the bar, they have a hundred points, and maybe twenty from human players, and the apposing alliance is struggling to get all the blue balls they can in the goals, and capping them with a doubler. Say they have ten balls, cap it with a doubler, they will only have a hundred points, while the double hanging alliance needs just one blue ball to defeat them by five lousy points. Do you people see what I mean? These teams are not raising the bar, they are lowering it. And it REALLY confuses me when these teams that serve one purpose, (hanging), recieve all the awards.
<~~~~~~ CONFUSED!!!
P.S. I am not trying to insult anyone

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

how is it playing cheap when that is their stradigy. and plus it takes a lot more work and engineering to make a hangin robot than it does to make a box bot because a box bot is all that is needed to push the little 5pt balls

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

i undertsnad what you are saying, and i also do not like when a team does only one thing. BUT.... that was their strategy. They probably sat down and ocnsidered all the posibilities for this game, and chose the one they thought would give them the maximum to win. I can think of one team who does this excelently. Team 237 onyl does 1 thing this year. They get on the bar and defend it. They lost onyl 1 match at the NJ regional, due to another team blocking them to get to the bar. If you have not realized, in FIRST or in any other type of engineering, more fancy and complex does not always mean better. I have noitced every year that most succesfull teams are the ones that go out and do one thing during the game, but do it consistently. This thing they do may consist of one arm or add on, but that is the only extra thing on their bot that gets time put into and developed.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

A strategy is a strategy. Two robots quickly hanging is far from unbeatable.

Moreover... I think that the small balls will be much more deciding than hanging when the big boys and girls come out to play at some of regionals with older teams and or (historically) sound robots. I don't think the first weekend will be representative of the whole season.

Getting 10 balls and capping in 1:45 should not be a problem for a well made robot with a ball hearder and an arm. It will be a significant problem for a team that trys to simply push them around. I heard the someone compare it to "hearding cats" - I'd have to agree!

It's definitely a rock-paper-scissors sort of competition. Hanging robots that require a lot of room and time to hang will have little to no choice but to do so at the start of the round. Those that can hang from on the floor or while not needing to be on the top lip will be at a great advantage.

Matt

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

It is better for a team to do one thing and do it very well, rather then try to do fifty things all poorly. FIRST is often a game of compromises. You must make tradeoffs when you design the robot.

Some teams choose to hang and they did. While most of the teams that I saw at VCU played defense before they hung, after seeing some of the crazy robot designs posted here (The shimmy, anyone?) I think some teams would like to get to the bar before it becomes unavailable :p

It is not a cheap strategy by any means and as to them receving awards, think about it this way: They set out to build a robot that hangs. It hangs well. Mission accomplished. Let the accolades rain down.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I saw many teams that did just that. Its best to have a robot that can hang from the side of the platform. That way you can score some goals and also have enough time and room on the bar to hang. This strategy works great when other robots are blocking the base.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I've said it a million times before, and I'll say it a million times after this...

For every strategy, there is a counter strategy. All the hangers be forewarned, because teams will catch on. The double hang strategy is not cheap....effective, but not cheap.

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

You did watch the Killer Bees, didn't you?

It all depend on how you design, but a small bot ball that if well designed can easily outscore a hanging bot.

18 5 pt balls in the stationary goal uncapped is almost equal to two hanging robots. So its not like FIRST set an arbitrary number. They put one where a hanging bot could do well but a good small ball bot would do better. You get what you design. Most small ball bots have the problem of beating hanging bots because they are designed inefficiently for what they are supposed to do while the hanging bots are more efficient. They can only hang once and they are hanging once. It's like a quarterback passing efficiency rating, 1 attempt, one touchdown. Robot's not designed well with the small balls may be more in the range of 4-5 attempts per completion and then you get the touchdown depending on if the HP makes the shot. Not quite as efficient. Small bot robots are like a west coast offense though so they have a lot more attempts and can complete a lot more passes for more overall points. You just want to have that high efficiency to go with it.

Okay. I'm done.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Will every alliance that we play against please, please hang right away?

This strategy, while getting 100 points (maybe 130) will not be enough against teams that do not count on hanging at all.

Go hang and leave the opposition free to roam the carpet .. I can think of many strategies that will beat it.

To answer directly .. NO. I do not think it is cheap!

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

i was at the same regional as ToMMan b182 and team 237 hung from the bar and thats all and a solid 50 points 99.99% of the time is a huge advantage. plus 237 did more than just hangin and i know ToMMan b182 knows wat im talking about. take for instance my teams 2001 robot "Lil' MOE" it was a simple bot that didnt try to do everything. and look what the became of "Lil' MOE" National Champion :cool: i dont mean to come off as cocky but a bot that does one thing and does that one thing extraordinarily well is almost always a solid plan and there is less things that can go wrong (most of the time)

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

i mean no offence to team 237 but without team 303 they wouldnt have been Champs of the NJ regional because 303 was a great, no not great, excellent small ball and large ball handeler

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I would love to see all our opponents take the strategy, both bots hanging right off the bat and getting 100- 130 points if their HP is perfect

some of us figured out the most points one bot can get is by collecting balls and capping the goals, and we have built our machines accordingly

we are hoping to be allied with other teams that also collect and cap - 24 small balls in capped goals is 240 point - hanging not required

so those 100 to 130 point loosing scores will rack up our qualification points very nicely! :^)

You see the power
you feel the thunder
When Blue Lightning strikes
you run for cover!

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=Verbose

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

What you may mean is that its not as exciting. But after working on our hanger (major learning step for our team), it seems unfair to call us cheap. After all, would we be less cheap if we only had the hanger?

Now gameplay is another thing.... I don't really like the teams that lack the bravery to do anything. We will be hanging, but we will also do a real crackerjack driving job that will make people excited about the game!

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

im not tryin to dis ken but how often do u get 24 balls in a stationary goal and cap it? :rolleyes:

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Team 237 reilded highly on our alleince partners though all the elmination rounds. They would bascicly be the tie breaker that would win the match for us. It goes to show you that without your alleince partners you will not succeed. Thank you teams 303 and 56.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

our bots main purpose was to hang, thats it...we had a hugely consistent autonomous, and that was it. we then got the idea to put on ball wings, but we ran into a huge problem when whe tried to herd them into the corral...we always got inside the players station. so to avoid the problem of getting d'qed we took off the wings, and went straight for the bar after... we also had one of the best drives at BAE, so sometimes we would wait and block the ramp, in one match, we went against a team who collected all the small balls in auto., and pushed them out of the way, so only 6-7 balls accumulated into their hopper, then hung. we hung 7 out of our 8 matches.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

fair question!
there are two goals on the field, and if our alliance can also collect and/or cap the goals, and our opponents when and hung themselves, there would be nothing to stop us from filling both of them - even get some extra ball from the other side if we have to.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Steve S.,

There is still a moveable goal ready to get an easy 60 points without the stationary goal. The best part is that you can protect it while you drive around.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

but in order for u to get all of those balls and points u have to have a great human player but still that is a lot of balls to collect deliver and shoot (not to mention make them all) im not sayin its unreasonable because its not and im sure it will happen sometimes but wat do u think the chances are of it actually happening

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

if you are going to ask that, you might as well ask what are the chances of a huge bird swooping down from the sky and stealing your battery... Anything is possible with practice.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

The chances are excellent. Our HP got to be on the Ateam by consistantly hitting 17 or more out of 20

and if he misses a few, there will be 18 balls lying around on the other side of the field too.

when one team hangs both bot right off the bat, the other team is left with a 'target rich environment' :^)

24 balls between two bots and two HPs is 12 each

145 / 12 = 12 seconds to shoot or gather each ball - the bots keep dumping 5 or 6 balls into the corral, the HP keeps shooting - 12 seconds per ball is all the time in the world

esp when your bot gathers balls like a carpet sweeping picking up popcorn!

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Team 33 dominated with-out ever once hanging from the bar. Other teams, like 346 or 422, could hang from the ground, making it almost immposible for a robot on the bar to stop them. And note the match where all 4 robots got on the bar(yay, my team did something memorable!), teams where trying to stop the other teams from getting on the bar, but they failed, and they got on the bar too. Or the match where 388 capped 33 stationary goal, a WHOLE lotta points where scored then. An alliance in Portland scored 170 with NO robots on the bar, just both goals filled and capped. All stategies can be beaten. Team 33 ball collector could be beaten by forcing them to have to spend most of their time dodging you and moving mobile goals, that is, if you can get a robot on the bar also and a few balls in the goals.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Ted said it before, but we KNEW our alliance partners saved us. It's not offensive, it's true. And thank god.

When we were planning our bot, as I am sure all of you did, we talked about what we would do. And We decided we could handle doing one thing this year, and doing it well. Hanging was that single option. It's not cheap, just as it isn't cheap to have a bot that catches balls in autonomous or one that uses goals to block chutes.

Rest assured, our strategies will change and we do love effective alliance partners. And I applaud teams that make our lives just a little bit more difficult. ^.^

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

No offense taken!! Team 237 thanks 303 and 56 for their awesome skills in doing what they do. That is why we chose them, because we know we can't do it all, and never wanted to. We chose to design a robot that could do one thing great, and that's it.

Well, One thing great, and maybe a couple other things ok.

We have learned in our 6 years being involved in FIRST that there is a system of checks and balances. Some years we have been greedy and chose to try and do everything, re:2001. But in the end, we were unsucessfull in all approaches and never had the tskills to even be picked in the finals since we didn't qualify high enough.

The bottom line is: K.I.S.S.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I'll toss in my 2 cents and say that I don't think that any robots or strategies are invulnerable this year. Ken has already pointed out that 2 robots hanging immediately will give free reign to the small ballers and cappers. Simillarly, one could assume that small ballers and cappers are not going to be good at hanging from the bar. Thus, efficient, quick hanging robots should be able to spend a large portion of the game defending players stations and keeping such teams from delivering their small or large balls. The balling teams would either then have to block the hangers from getting to the bar, or get to the bar themselves, etc, etc, etc. The strategies and counter strategies can go on for a very long time. The only invincible robot would really be one that can do everything and do everything very well, but that's the case every year and if a team can build that bot in 6 weeks, kudos to them.
I'll say the best strategy to win this year will be good scouting, knowing your strengths and weaknesses and those of your enemy, and knowing how to capitalize on said strengths and weaknesses.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

If a team can only get 130 points max, you can win with 14 capped balls or 27 non-capped. You don't need 240 points, only 135. That's not including the potential of 10 point balls.

Besides, wouldn't it be cheaper for a team to just make drivetrain and push ball with a plow? You could collect enough balls to be somewhat competitive and it wouldn't be as difficult to build. (Note: I'm not saying it would be "cheap," I'm just trying to make a point.)

The strategy does not break any of the rules, nor does it contradict the spirit of the rules. I don't see how it is cheap when the teams still had to put work into their robot. It doesn't make for the most exciting matches, but if you ask me, this is not a new problem. There were a lot of matches last year that were basically decided in autonomous mode. It doesn't make the strategy cheap, although you could argue that there may be something wrong with the game.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

even though 237's robot mainly hangs and hangs with amazing skill, it makes for one of the most exciting and nail bitting matches u will ever have. i know from experience lol but i enjoyed every bit of it :]

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

i will not post here...i will not post here....well...okay, yes I will

So, two teams want to hang at the beginning of the match? fantastic, makes me very happy. my alliance partner and i will now be herding EVERY ball to our human players for about 1:20....and then capping both goals....lol, don't sweat it, hanging robots are NOT the end of the world. Ask Auburn Hills (Team 33). They collect balls. that's it. Oh, and they won virginia with it. I'd say hanging is easily negatable.

okay....i think im done....

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

i think this thread was not aimed to shoot down different people's robots or strategies, just to see what people thought about a certain strategy of hanging from the begining of the match.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I think the results of the poll answers the question very nicely.
Thank you for making it a poll!!

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

yup i think the poll explains the majority of people point of view :cool:

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

just a question for all you disbelievers...

a team who in autonomous, drive under the players station, and collects alll the balls in one shot...now if you were a hanger bot, wouldnt you think this was a cheap strategy? i mean its all in due measure...noone can have a happy mindset.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

maybe the problem is that teams who are able to hang very well, and do it consistantly

well.....

they just make it look so EASY! :^)

when you see a bot trying and trying and trying to grab the bar and they finally made it, you think, wow that driver really struggled to make it happen

but if a bot hangs itself in auton mode.... then how hard can it be, right?

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I'd just give props to the programmer...but you know...

Our bot can hang. Hanging is something that we will be doing better than say ball grabbing and such. We designed our robot with that in mind...yes, we can do other things, but hanging is our strong point and if we do better just going for the hang at the beginning, than that's what we'll be doing...it comes down to strategy. In reality...any bot that hangs at the start is actually more at a disadvantage if you can heard well with ball and can cap and have an excellent human player. ... 18 balls + 3 balls + 3 balls = 24 balls. 24 balls * 5 =120 points. 120 points * 2 for the multiplier ball is 240 points...a bot that could shoot well, cap, and catch all the balls and feed them to the hp could woop on a team that hanged...

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I love these robots, these gumball mchine auton catchers. Please let every match be with and agaisnt them. They aren't cheap, but a wonderful use of strategy. I also think they look awesome..

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

There is no such thing as a cheap strategy.
Just people too foolish to adapt.

"whine whine whine... you won't let us play the game the way we think it should be played... whine whine whine"

Play the game the way it's being played, not the way you think it should be played.

When in rome... beat them at their own game.
Or something like that, I was never good at proverbs.

JVN

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

if every team had the same stratagy then the game would be boring and FIRST isnt about being boring its about havin fun and learnin. i agree that no stratagy is ever cheap.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

What truly amazes me is the low volume of teams who can hang from the floor- those steps are extremely dangerous, I know when my team was testing our treads we flipped every time, yet so many have designed elaborate drivetrains to go up those steps.. I somewhat wish we had a 'cool' drivetrain also, but it sure is a luxury to not have to worry about those steps. Did most of you think about this option instead of going up the steps?



*This was my opinion only and does not represent team 341*

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I think you put what I meant to say better. I did use quotations in order to denote that I wasn't trying to insult or accuse anyone. I'm glad everyone did take this thread so well, and no screaming or yelling went on. BRAVO!!!

Yes, in my opinion hanging is less exciting. I'd much rather see a robot in action for a minute and a half, than just see them hanging for that period of time. I think it dulls down the game somewhat, but if that is your strategy, so be it. GOOD LUCK!!!

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

During our brainstorm meetings in the beginning of the year, our team determined that hanging would be the most important robot ability (I'm not saying that is the most important, just that we determined it would be our number 1 priority). In addition, hanging is a 1 or 0 situation. Herding has a grey zone. So if you can build a good system and test and see that it works, hanging would be better cause it's a guaranteed 50 pts.

We started out with the idea of being a jack-of-all-trades. We had herding flaps, a 2x multiplier handler, and a hanger. We decided it was far more important to hang and just rip the 2x ball of the goal instead of also recapping it. This is not the best strategy for all teams, but we wanted to do one thing and do it well. Then, when we couldn't hang, we always had the backup strategy of herding balls. This "plan b" saved our neck multiple times (good job, HP Tim).

Finally, it is not "boring" at all to watch a match of hangers. When hangers fight for the top, it is far more fun to watch than ball collecting. Take our 2nd semi-final match. Our alliance-mate hung (997) then, the opposing robot hung (957). We got on the bar and tried to lift ourselves (and the other two robots) up. Lifting 360 lbs of weight was too much for the hook - it gave up and we fell. Although we lost, this was one exciting match! In addition, at the Pacific regional, I think people clapped most when robots either hung or multiplied, not herded.

At the Pacific NW regional, many of the earlier matches were decided with very low scores like 30/35 and 40/15. Once the teams who had hanging improved it, scores skyrocketed. Record scores in order were (team setting the record in parenthesis): 130 (948 & 1256), 140 (948 & ?), 180 (360 I think). Every record-setting match had at least one hanger (correct me if I'm mistaken).

One thing that seemed unstoppable was the combination of a hanging robot and a capping robot. Even w/o any herding a capped 6-ball goal and a hanger gives you 110.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

A good example of this was at the J&J NJ Regional. Look which teams were in the winning alliance, team 237: one of the best if not the best hanger i have seen so far, team 303: small ball dominator and 2x ball dominator, and team 56: mobil goal domination.

These three teams worked perfectly together and the alliance did seem unstoppable :ahh:

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Hanging from the floor.. Yeah, that would be nice.. but.

I think our major problem with hanging from the floor came from the fact that our mechanisn at the end of our arm needs strength from the arm to lift itself up.
We kept that design simple and went with a one jointed system with a pneumatic extension. If we had any more weight or joints we might be able to hang from the floor, but may not be able to sucessfully intergrate our mechanism into play, and would more than likely be over weight.
We are pushing 130.0 as it is now.
Remember that you also have to take the trigonometry of folding up a mechanism that will fit in the starting profile when designing an arm that will reach more than 10' in the air to grab that bar.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

okay, in response to this thread, I've submitted a strategy/counter-strategy sheet to the white pages. though it's very basic, enjoy

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Not always... we have a telescoping arm that can extend 12'', and its insanely fast also... use your creativity :)

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

Now why would you say hanging is a cheap strategy?
1) It's part of the game. The only cheap strategies in FIRST are those that break rules. The bar is in the game because FIRST wanted to see some hanging bots. Obviously if FIRST thought that just hanging was cheap there wouldnt be a bar to hang on.

2) You can beat a hanging bot, just block them from getting to the bar. And if they do latch on. just beat them with balls.

3) Doing only 1 thing IS A GREAT STRATEGY!!! It gives you all of build season to focus on building the mechanism for that task (the hanging arm for example), saving you time and money. Then your drive teams are so much better at it because they really only have to practice doing 1 thing.

4) Why shouldn't a team get awards when their robot only does one thing. They have played the game as they wanted to, and they, like the rest of us succeeded in building their robot. I have seen robots that do only one thing that are far more impressive than ones that do everything. Just because they only do one thing does not make their robot any less impressive or their team any less skilled.

5) Bots that only hang can be exciting too. With all the trouble getting up the platforms many bots have, its suspenseful watching to see if they can get on top without tipping over. Or try the match at BAE when 4 robots went for the bar at the same time.

6) remember that most of the time, simpler is better. I have watched many matches where the big fancy robot that does everything looses to a little tiny robot that only does one thing. Look at the top seed in BAE, Team 501 only hanged, and they did it well.

Honestly, doing 1 thing is a great strategy. Its simple, usually inexpensive, and usually quicker to build. If a team wants to do this than thats how they want to play the game, and it's their right to play it that way.

by the way, as far as teams that lack the bravery to do anything, consider a few things first:
-maybe that team didnt have the time, resources or money to build anything more than a box on wheels
-never underestimate what a box on wheels can do, they can surprise you
-the team still built a robot didnt they? That means they still did what they set out to do, build a robot
-perhaps the team might not be doing all these showy tricks in matches for fear of breaking or destroying their creation that they worked their buts off on for 6 weeks.

Teams can play the game anyway they want (except for breaking rules of course). Like I said, there arent any "cheap" strategies except those that break the rules or go against gracious professionalism. Obviously if FIRST thought something was "cheap" they would put something in the rules forbdding it (such as the tipping of another robot).

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

There is no such thing as playing Cheap. However their is such thing as playing smart. There are not many ways to score points this year. Its either hang for 50 points or push balls to the human player. From the looks of the robots many teams took the HANG path.

I say let them hang if they wanna. Let them clear the path for your alliance to score the balls!!! (HINT HINT)

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

i believe that no alliance scored 180 at the PNW regional, but two alliances scored 170. I forgot one, but the other alliance was 492 and 1031.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

My team (team 492) did not try to hang at all and did amazingly well. We placed 1st in the seeding round and the aliance lead by us took the gold. As you may have guesed we picked 2 hangers as our aliance partners so as to distribute the + qualities throught our alliance. Hanging was not needed to be good, and many of the teams tryed just to hand and failed. We did everything BUT hang, so its not really cheap if you can do it but still not even win...

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

"6) remember that most of the time, simpler is better. I have watched many matches where the big fancy robot that does everything looses to a little tiny robot that only does one thing. Look at the top seed in BAE, Team 501 only hanged, and they did it well."

Just a correction, team 501 was the top seed at BAE but they not only hung, they had a great large ball system that allowed them to steal the mobile goal, place it under their troff, fill it and cap it within 30 seconds....then they hung. Hanging alone would not have been enough in most of their matches.

Re: "Playing Cheap"
 

I'm just glad to see that FIRST learned their lesson from last year, when the game turned into a battle for the ramp and not a stacking competition. They have done a much better job assigning points this year. Last year, staking bots had no chance against king of the hill bots. But this year, both bar domination and ball collecting seem like effective strategies.