What If...
 

Here is an interesting question I pose to you...

Here is an observation I have made in reguards to this years game design (post build period). It seems like FIRST went into this game trying to steer designs into a preferential base. In other words...they created rules essentially preventing extention of a robot to the 3 point goal so that they could see robots shoot. The result...many designs with very similar structures and setups. There are essentially two types of robots...

1. The shooter, for the most part flywheel designs.
2. The 1 point bot with a ramp or roller to unload into the 1 point goal.

Sure there are some robots with some creative designs, as is to be expected, but overall, most of the robots are the same. Just look at pictures of the robots and look at the shooters. I would hazard a guess and say that 75 percent of them have the ol' "Neverending Story statue with the shooting eyes" complex. (For those who have seen the movie, you will understand very quickly...just look at the wings of the statue.)

Anyhow...I pose this question...

Designwise and strategywise...how much would designs change if...

1. The expansion rule was lifted.

and

2. For each opponent robot on your ramp, you get 25 points.

What do you think?

Disclaimer: This is not a thread to blast the design of the game, just a rhetorical question.

Re: What If...
 

My predictions:
1) You'd instantly see a bunch of folks cannibalizing their 2005 lifts and adding a sheet of lexan in the place of the end effector.
2) The final 40 seconds become a massive pushing match. Expect for holonomics to get tag-teamed and shoved up the ramp. Robots would ignore trying to get onto the ramp themselves.

Re: What If...
 

I'm sure if the extension rule was put back in than noone should have problems making 3 point shots.

Re: What If...
 

What do you mean by that? Do you not think that holonomic drive trains can get on the ramp? Ours can. It does it with ease also. Or atleast in our test it did (We never tested our final design)

Josh
Team Drive/Designer

Re: What If...
 

I thought the whole no extension rule was so that teams would not create robots that would just block the 3 pt goal with like a net or something. That would have made it a really bad and boring game.

Re: What If...
 

That's the first gate of the Southern Oracle -- but I still don't get it :)

Re: What If...
 

1) The game would be much like a 2 min NBA game if every player was Shaq :D
Lots of dunking and blocking, but no shooting.
Very physical and the refs would have to Foul Out (disable bots) for flipping others.

2) Very physical and the refs would have to Foul Out (disable bots) for flipping others.

I think Billfred means that 2 Redabots would push holonomic Bluabot up Red ramp scoring 75pts for Red

Re: What If...
 

I think what BillFred was trying to say is that for the most part "standard" (4, 6, etc...) wheel drive robots hold an advantage in a pushing match against a holonimic robot, so the robots with holonimic drivetrains would get teamed up against. Hope this clarifies things.

Re: What If...
 

Correct.

I reckon that you'd need two robots double-teaming a holonomic robot, though, since they're so darn maneuverable.

Re: What If...
 

As for the fact that a lot of designs are similar regarding the shooter mechanism, I think it's for 2 reasons.

1. No one has done this before so there isn't much variance from the standard time-tested way to shoot stuff.

2. The shooting mechanisms consisting of flywheel(s) and a plate(s) just work well.
Our team had an idea for a really interesting design consisting of a lot of arms on a flywheel but we never built it because it was way too complex, and actually impossible to aim due to the fact that the controller loops through the code about every 16ms.


Also, the no-extension rule is to prevent people from extending shields over the goals, which would make a really boring game.


P.S. what is a holonomic robot?

Re: What If...
 

by definition, it is a drive system that can both translate (slide) and rotate at the same time. It usually involves mecanum wheels or omni's mounted at angles to the body, and allows teams to slide in all directions, regardless of facing. Examples can be found on CD if you look. I know team 190 did them last year, and 1595 has them this year.

Re: What If...
 

Well, for sure I would have pushed for us to make a "lifting dump bed" that would simply pour the balls into the three point goal.

Re: What If...
 

That's when you tilt the robot at a certain angle and it looks like it's three-dimensional.

It's in no way similar to holographic, in which a robot can translate and rotate simultaneously.

Re: What If...
 

I think Chriszuma got them switched.

Re: What If...
 

I'd build a robot that climbed onto my ramp, extended up to cover the 3 pt goal, and extended two arms out to block the 1 pt goals. It could probably do it in autonomous mode, too.
The other alliance cannot score any balls, and I have 25 pts for being on the ramp. All my alliance needs is to score one ball anywhere and get the other two robots on the platform and we're unbeatable.

Now that would be a boring match.

Re: What If...
 

I wanted to get a fishing net on a pole to block the center goal before they announced the no extensions rule. I think preventing blocking makes for a more exciting match, but it would have been cool to see other ways people thought of to get the balls up to that three point goal.

Piggybacking robots, anyone?

Re: What If...
 

I think a robot with a extending net that could block the shots and then in return harvest the balls for there own use to score on there own goal. So they would be in return not having to corral balls in defense and just being able to both block and and then score. When you thik about it, it would probly be able to win alot of awards because u take all of there balls and prevent them from scoring and not have to take time to collect balls and can then go right to score. INgenious. :D

But again boring, but yet effective

Re: What If...
 

I like this. What about instead of removing the restriction altogether, you change it to read "No robot may exceed 5 feet in ANY dimension." That would be effectively the same, but would still allow piggybacking robots, powered pogo sticks, hovercraft, etc.

Re: What If...
 

1 of two things would happen. We'd have either super high schoring games or super low scoring games because either wed have teams only concentrating on defense or teams only concentrating on offense. Plus no balls would get shot into the crowd, which is going to be fun. Adds the whole baseball thing to it.

Re: What If...
 

Minus the fact that you have to give the balls back as the teams need them for the match, and the fact that those balls hurt when they come flying off and your not expecting to get hit with them.

Re: What If...
 

One idea we threw around in brainstorming was a giant fan on top of the robot to push incoming balls away with air, I'd like to see a robot with THAT.

Re: What If...
 

Yup, we did that too, but feasabilty testing showed us it wasn't going to work well enough. oh well

Re: What If...
 

Thats exactly what I was thinking, return of the KOTH bots from 2003. That was my first thought before I heard the expansion rule, was park a robot in the middle of the field and lower wings down, blocking all traffic.

What would be interesting, is if the expanision rule was lifted only in the horizontal directions. It'd also be interesting if the height limit was redifined, saying robots can not be taller than 60inches, but does not prohibit breaking the imaginary plane 60in above the floor. I really wanted to do a bot like 111's 2001 machine, so somoene else could drive up on top of my bot, placing their shooting mechanism at point blank range right in front of the center goal.