Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

Based on the Oregon regional, arms bots were the winning alliance.:D

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

Our robot, team 358, is clearly an arm robot, but since we can shoot from at least 8 feet from the overpass while on the move, it posseses many of the advantages of a shooter. I am sure there are other similar designs out there. So framing the debate as arm vs. shooter ignores the existence of these hybrid bots. In the coming weeks we will see how this plays out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1BZAsH-RYA

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

My opinion is that Great Shooters are better than Great Armbots, but perhaps only marginally so. But when you get into the Good and Average categories, the benefit becomes less. I saw several robots that I would consider Good Shooters and at least one Great Shooter miss the hurdle, either shooting too soon, too late, or at an angle. They had to make another complete lap to try again - while an Armbot managed to score. I don't think this should be a "Tastes Great" / "Less Filling" kind of thing. Actually, maybe it really is that kind of thing. The whole point of the beer commercial was that both things were true, and why should they be spending time arguing about it. Both Armbots and Shooters are good and have their advantages - can we leave it at that?

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

I believe you are then referring to us.

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

Due to the incredible importance of the endgame, we will see arm/lift bots in the Einstein finals. Shooters can do some endgame strategies, but nowhere near as well as arms or lifts can.

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

I agree that at Einstein, the end of match strategies and play will determine matches. Great teams will constantly counter each other with great hurdling and autonomous play. A possible 24-0 score difference due to end of match placing of trackballs is a lot of points.
Those things didnt seem to matter too much in many matches during week 1 because quite a bit of matches were won during autonomous play, penalties negated bonus scores, and matches were not close.

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

I need to stop you right there. Now lets say, to take the worst case scenario for the shooter, that its a tie score, that the arm will place 100% of the time and the shooter is incapable of placement. There are 10 seconds left. An arm bot on one alliance begins to place, while the shooter on the other alliance is moving to hurdle. Whats to stop the shooter from hurdling and, since it doesn't need to stop while doing so, continuing around the track and knocking the arm bot's trackball off the overpass. Since we are assuming the worst case scenario for the shooter, lets say that the the ball rolls off in the direction of traffic, and is therefor counted as a hurdle for the arm bot, we still have a tie score. Now factor in that if you take an arm bot and a shooter of equal degrees of efficiency, the shooter will hurdle at least one more time in the match than the arm, just the fact that shooters don't need to stop assures that. This means that in most scenarios, it wont be a tie game with ten seconds left, the shooter will have the lead, and the ability to match or negate any bonus points by the other alliance.

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

Endgame creates a potential 24 point difference in your score if done well enough. The game does not have to be a tie, or even close to one for the endgame to be important. The idea with endgame is that you place your balls close enough to the end that another team does not have time to come back around and knock them off. I believe the ideal alliance will be 2 shooters and one arm/lift.

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

Actually if the shooters cant place they can still hurdle. Two placements and two hurdles only have an 4 point difference, because an arm cant place and then cross the finish line if it places at the last second, and a shooters superior speed will make up for those 4 points.

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

..Most arm bots could keep up (speed wise) with the shooters, and good armbots had very little time wasted to drop there arm (Killer Bees, Wildstang, both of which hurdled just as fast as 1114) and you saw times where the placements won the match against shooters (Killer Bees against Simbotics the first time, Wildstang against the rookie shooter 23xx?? 2358 maybe..)

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

They might have kept up with them a few times, but most of what I saw 1114 blew them away. From what I saw today, the most hurdles Wildstang got was 3, I saw 1114 get 5-7. I also thought that the finals were a pretty good example of arm vs shooter and shooter won. I do think you could compare killer bees with a shooter however. their arm is very effective, falling down after they hurdle so they dont need to wait. I thikn that may be the best arm bot we see this year.
Joey

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

This is our end effector. Its 3 rollers. The two fiberglass folding arms that are sticking out at the bottom have been removed. Works like a charm and the top part of the rollers is used to push off balls. It was good enough for us to be undefeated in elimination rounds (until we faced 103 in the finals that is :p ). But overall, I love this thing. I would make it into a shooter though if we could do it all over again:P(j/k)

Re: Shooters vs Arms
 

I agree. In fact, if everyone built shooter bots, the game would suck. Maybe shooter bots score the most points, but don't downplay what arm bots or lap bots can do. Diversity is what makes the competition great. Having a shooter to move quick, score points while one armbot is placing. The other arm bot moves to the other side to grab the ball as soon as the first bot hurdles, could go really quick if done right. Then at the end game both arm bots place the trackballs, man that would be coooooollll.