Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

is BAE being webcasted? if so where is the link?

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

I don't believe it is being web-casted... but I am recording the regional and will be uploading it all to the SOAP archives early next week. I may be wrong, but I don't remember it being on the webcast schedule.

My team, team 610, will be traveling down to BAE for the first time, joining 296 as the Canadian contingent down there. I think you'll be seeing alot of the Canadian flag this weekend :p. Here are some specs on our robot:
- 6 wheel drive
- 2 speed AndyMark Gearbox's
- Turreted arm
- Two joints on the arm, main joint and manipulator joint
- The upper portion of the arm also extends out
- here is a pic:
http://img47.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0035ch6.jpg

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

So after a day of watching this game, here are a couple of observations:

With defense, it becomes very difficult to score, and if a robot of the opposing alliance is between you and the end zone, you aren't getting home. While today seemed promising that high scores would happen (there were several instances of a row of 8), I don't see that happening tommorow.

Also, there needs to be a ramp graveyard. Several teams removed them. Also, although ramps are few and far between, they are a match swinger, assuming you get robots up them.

No Bumpers?!?! In our row of the pits, which is about 1/3 of the 46 teams at the regional, there are about 3 robots with full bumpers.

Just plain double ramp bots will be at a premium.

This game is all about teamwork. You must work with your alliance partners, and follow your strategy to the end. We scored much better in our practice matches when we had a plan then when all just tried to score as much as possible.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Yeah I was surprised with the number of teams not using bumpers. Free protection, free weight, free stability. It's also a very easy way of making sure you have numbers on your robot.

There are a couple of ramps, but none of them look really promising. We tried to get up one, but we ran out of time. Teams would seriously have to get back really early on in hopes of getting up a ramp. A forklift design might be different, but ramps definately provide some trouble.

The rack does really swing around. There were many many instances when a team would place a tube on the goal and try to back away without letting go of the tube. The rack proceded to shake violently and I actually did see a couple teams miss putting rings on while the goal while it was swinging.

Not many human players scored on the rack. One of our mentors (who is actually a field resetter for this event) said she counted four tubes scored by human players. One of those was scored by our human player. :D

As far as I know, only one team (Buzz 175) was able to score in autonomous.

I saw a couple of very good scorers. I see most of the time between scoring tubes is taken up by actually picking up the tube. It takes some time to line up, actually grab it, and all that.

That's my overview of just what happened during practice matches.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Any robot pictures taken today that you can upload?

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Bumpers = Bad for climbing ramps.

Thats what I learned today. I hope that teams realize that 30-60 points a round might be worth sacrificing those little pool noodles for a round or two.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Modifying your robot to "fix" another team's design flaw = Bad, period.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Andy, that last match together, that team couldn't get up your ramps b/c they were on backwards and scraping on the ground... I did tell them to turn around to their other end and it would have worked.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Jonathan,

It wasn't my intention to single out any teams in that statment. I think its just a fact of life...bumpers make it more difficult to climb ramps. I think you guys would have been fine climbing on top of us.

In response to Tom, you are partially right...its not necessarily fair for teams to have to pull off bumpers to climb another robot...but when the robots that dictate whether or not you might win a round or the championship need these little tweaks, it might be a risk worth taking.

Also note that in the matches I watched at the scrimmage et al, there must have been ALOT of design flaws. I dont know if I saw a bumpered robot sucessfully climb a ramp bot all day at the scrimmage. I couldn't tell you how many did or not yesterday because I wasn't watching.

My conclusion...not necessarily a design flaw, but more envelope dictating ramp. We shall see though.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

It may not be a design flaw, per se, but you have to wonder what teams were doing building ramps that are barely wide enough for another team to climb up and expecting them to do it in the final couple of tense seconds in a match.

Have fun with the delay today, see you around 1 pm Mr. Grady.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Having little credibility, since I'm with a team with a narrow ramp, I can only say that I respectfully disagree. I imagine we'll see lots of ramp bots of all shapes and sizes at Boston, definitely a higher percentage than in Manchester. I would think flexibility on the part of both teams would be the key. Maybe the climbing team can take off just the constraining set of bumpers or the ramp team can remove their guardrails.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

I also have to respectfully disagree with you Tom.

A team should resonably expect that the other teams it is designing a ramp for them to climb would NOT have a width of a wheel base that is not out to the limit. But a reasonable amount of distance 'inboard' (1 inch?) of the limits put forth by FIRST.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

At the WWS, we were able to (barely) climb a ramp with our bumpered robot. The extra 6-7" of width makes it very difficult to fit on most ramps. Also, the fact that the bumpers are soft makes it hard for them to slide off of any vertical sides of the ramp, or similar. I hope that we don't have to remove our bumpers, but it if makes the difference between 30 points or not, we'll be taking them off.

Designing a ramp-bot to handle all types of robots and drive trains is a difficult task. Not surprisingly, it's about as difficult as an arm/elevator/grabber to score the ringers. You'll see both excellent and poor designs of both types of robots. The teams that compromised the design of their robot to accommodate both systems may find it difficult to be successful with either aspect of their robot. Single purpose robots may prove to be the winning design this year, which has been the case for a lot of years now...

Best of luck to all this weekend!

BEN

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Let's not forget about driver's skill in getting up a ramp. Certainly, being almost the exact width of the robot makes it extremely difficult to climb up.

Re: 2007 New Hampshire Regional (BAE SYSTEMS Granite State Regional)
 

Has anyone found the YouTube videos that were featured today at the competition? I've tried out the tags that they've displayed, yet, nothing. (seeing as 172 was specifically mentioned, I wouldn't mind seeing the video...)

By the way; 172 would like to invite all of our potential allies to take a look towards using our ramps! We hold the potential for 60 easy points... We've had surprisingly few robots who have even come back to them at the end of the game...:(