Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Car Nack Predicts 2010-1

1. Contrary to most previous years, the qualifying matches will have, on average, much higher scores than the elimination matches.

2. Unless there is a revision to the definition of a "suspended robot", an alliance scoring eight points (three robots hanging) will be extremely rare. So rare in fact that it will never happen at least 40 regional competitions and a chance it will never happen in the FRC 2010.

Car Nack has spoken.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Woohoo! Been waiting for this. :)

I can see how #1 might come about.

I think prediction #2 is iffy. It depends on lots of variables that are hard to get a grasp on (though I suppose it's predictions like this Car Nack is especially skilled at making). You'll need a good suspend-o-bot who can also score (not an impossible combination, I think) a solid scorer/hanger and enough depth of field to get an acceptable scorer/hanger combination.

On the same note, I think 8 points will be exceptionally rare (or unheard of?) in qualifying matches. I think it might be the Bee's Knees in eliminations though. If you can use two robots to tie up the balls (kick them to your zone, or preferably score them) while suspendo-bot gets in position in the final 40 seconds, I think the 8 points will be hard to beat, especially if you can keep the scores in check during tele-op.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I hope at least one robot is dedicated to proving point number 2 wrong. I am unsure who has the guts (or foolishness) to take such a path, but I would love to see it.

#1 seems spot on if you slightly amend that to say higher combined scores. And it's pretty much spot on without that.

Thank you, Car Nack. You are wise.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I have a lot of money riding on #2 with several members of the GDC. To clarify, I agree with Car Nack.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Neither are really surprising.
Defense will become much more important in the elims and unless there is a pairing like the 67, 111, 45 alliance in a qualification match you are probably not going to get teams together that are skilled enough to pull off an 8 point maneuver.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Car Nack is indeed a wise one! His truths shall lead us all.:rolleyes:

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

How about this?

3. At least one person will be injured with the trident during game-play.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I was wondering what part of the game The Great Car Nack was going to address first. Then two predictions at once. The Great becomes greater with each passing year.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

No matter how good 67, 111 and 45's really are (and they'll probably be better), they won't be able to score 8 points if the robots aren't designed to do so, and I think that's the point here; the lack of 8 point-finales may become a self-fulfilling prophecy - if no one believes it will happen, no one will spend time building the robot to do it, and then it will obviously not happen.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I predict we will see more 8 point hangs than many of you seem to think.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

For 8 points, I'd have to agree that no alliance will do it in any regional.
In Atlanta, however, on every field at least once during eliminations and Einstein.:D
If this is truly a low-scoring game, 8 points is like the 60 points, an alliance got in 2007.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I think everyone needs to estimate the length of time it will take to hang three robots. The risk of a loss becomes too great while the other team is scoring while you are doing neither scoring or defending. I would love to see it but I don't think I will.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I agree with this if all three bots try to hang early; yet a graduated approach to hanging may provide more options that mitigate the risk. In any case, it will be a game-time decision.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I really hope to see an 8pt hang in week1.

Note I said "hope":, and not "expect"...

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Jesse,
As Car Nack has predicted (and I concur) the first robot up may take between 10 and 15 seconds to hang. Even if the other robots were able to hang in the same length of time you can figure at least another 20-30 seconds for that and perhaps longer. So that takes the first robot out of the game after 75-90 seconds of play. I would think that three robots ought to be able to score 8 points in that same length of time, while defending against the opposing alliance at least part of that time.
I do not want to second guess the great one but I suspect the "revision" would be a multiplier for each rather than singular points.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I'm worried you may be right. And with the non-ball end, no doubt. I hope everyone's human players have practice to feed balls up so they can do it slowly and calmly, without whipping that thing around.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

On the topic of hanging, those that were around in 2004 remember how fast robots were able to climb the stairs and platforms and hang with just seconds left in a match. I remember robots that were able to hang and lift with seconds left in the matches on a consistent basis using very simple mechanisms. 8 points in the end game, I can see it happening, and I think the regional(s) that I will be able to attend I will see it with my own eyes.


Best of Luck

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Our team has done some of the calculations on the forces on the first hanging robot to support a second (didn't even consider the third hanger). Based on that, I think that is as much of a challenge as the time restraint.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I think we wont see it largely because the top team is unlikely to be comfortable supporting 450(ish)lbs from their tower grabber widget. If its beefy enough to hold up 450 lbs of robot, its going to be heavy, and i doubt anyone is going to make that design tradeoff.

EDIT: Unless, of course, the GDC decides to make it more worth our while... like say... a 2nd SUSPENDED ROBOT is worth a 2x or 3x multiplier to either the hanging stack, or the goals scored.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Technically, it does not have to be "beefy" to support that kind of weight. There are tradeoffs involved.

I don't think it'll be seen because I don't know how much most teams can be trusted to try and attach themselves to someone else's robot without breaking something. :p The point values don't make it worth it, IMO.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Back then, there were no bumper rules, no frame perimeter restrictions, and no size limits after the match started. Kickers, super size wheels, and other mechanisms to help teams climb the platform were common.

And a hang was worth 50 points, in matches where most scores were 80-200 points. And if you had a good alliance partner, they could either cap one of your own goals (potentially causing up to a 100+ point increase), uncap the opponents' goal (potentially causing up to a 100+ point swing in your favor), or hang themselves (50 points). There were all single actions, that could have a relatively large swing on the score, which made it easier to deal with one robot being "out of play" because they were on the bar.

Since this year's game is soccer, having a complete alliance to keep scoring is much more important. Having one alliance partner "out of play" (because they are hanging) makes it much more difficult for non-hanging alliance partners to do their job and continue to score soccer balls. Hanging may actually negatively affect the potential score your alliance could have scored if you have decent kicker robots and kept on just kicking soccer balls, especially if it takes 30-45 seconds to at least get one elevated and one suspended robot, never mind a second suspended robot for the 8-point hang.

At this point, I'm 99.9% sure the GDC will not change the point value of any scored object in the game. Entire robot designs and strategies were all coupled around a specific set of rules. Tweaking these points even slightly would completely destroy some strategies and open up new ones. This would basically waste an entire week of the build season for some teams, if they realized that new point values would make a completely different robot more advantageous. This would cause a massive uproar in the FRC community - "Rabble! Rabble! Rabble!" - which is the last thing FIRST wants right now.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

This was really the point I was getting at. I know we frequently try to do things in a way thats going to provide the least potential for damage to our robot, and having other teams hang off us just seems like asking for trouble.

I tend to agree. GDC is VERY unlikely to change things like this now, lest they unleash the wrath of 1500 teams who've been designing for a week.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Say whatever you want, but Car Nack has the track record that makes you stand up an take notice.

Having said that, you will not be surprised to discover that I am sure Car Nack's predictions have merit.

Please note that having 2 robots suspended and one robot elevated does not provide +8 points as many have argued!!!

To my way of thinking it provides a mere +2 -- the two robots that go from 2pt elevated to 3 point suspended.

This is a lot of pain for not a lot of benefit. If these +2 points were free or nearly free (in terms of time and risk), that would be one thing but they aren't.

It is quite hard to imagine a situation where 3 robots could configure themselves into an 8 point configuration as quickly and reliably as they could configure themselves in 6 point configuration. Every time I come up with a solution that WOULD provide this advantage, the solution I come up with requires so many resources from the various robots that if they put those same resources into building a robot that does other tasks better, they'd be ahead of the game (by a lot).

Callin' 'em as I sees 'em.

Joe J.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

We estimate that you can become easily elevated in ten seconds or less for two points. But to pull up high enough to allow another robot to suspend from you would take at least another 6-8 seconds. It would take at least as long for another robot to be suspended. A third robot would take forever.

A robot designed to do nothing other than become elevated and then lift up two other robots is possible (and I think some will try it) but the time needed top do it will allow the other alliance to more than make up the 8 points.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

My personal opinion is that the GDC kind of dropped the ball on this one. As Joe points out, the net benefit from SUSPENDING two robots, as opposed to ELEVATING them is only +2. It needed to be worth substantially more than this for teams to see it as being a worthwhile endeavour.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Does the GDC want every endeavor to be worthwhile? I personally believe they incorporate a certain amount of varying objectives so that teams have to do their own cost benefit analysis.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

bingo!

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

That was certainly the case in the FLL game this year. I suspect those people talk to each other from time to time.

I am envisioning the problem of ensuring that a SUSPENDED robot does not become an ELEVATED robot (or even worse, a hanging robot worth no points). I can think of a theoretical design for the (topmost) ELEVATED robot to accomplish this, but it is quite complex and would probably be weighty. Which might mean that it would be the only thing that robot could reliably accomplish. Worthy tradeoff? Maybe for the "Gee, wow!" factor.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

This is not true. You can very easily support 450 lbs of robots with a very light mechanism.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I'm with Cory on this. There are some VERY simple solutions out there that will move an alliance from a +6 bonus to a +8 bonus with very little effort and minimal mass impact. I will be amazed if several teams do not figure it out and make it work at the competitions. I understand Car Nack's concerns on this one. But I am willing to bet (very cautiously, because going against Car Nack is pretty much like spitting into the wind) that Car Nack will be wrong on this one.

-dave


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Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I do agree with Car Nack. It's not that it's technically unfeasible, it's that you're relying on others to do so, which means sitting around and waiting, potentially for a long time.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I have to agree with Car Nack, it will be tricky, but i believe if there was a robot out there that allowed a simultaneous climbing by two robots at once that would really relieve some of the pressure of staying on the field to score, as they could wait longer until they have to set up, because both other teams could climb at the same time.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

but how would you fit such a robot into a 84 inch cylinder?

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

When you see the answer to this you will kick yourself for not thinking of it. It is really simple. The question we still have is, "Is it worth it?".

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I have ideas for it, even though my team wont attempt it and i dont believe they should attempt it, but with a little innovation, i think you could do it eazier than you think.

A robot that has bars on both....

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

It can be done with drive-on platforms, barely. I'm sure that there is a much more clever solution.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

That would be a heck of a ramp. I would love to see it.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

So would I. Be ready.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

heck of a ramp you say... :D

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I would like to VERY Respectfully like to disagree with all knowing Car Nack . I believe there is a simple solution to the problem. I will leave it there for now. I have read rules many time but I would like to discuss this with some people before I post the solution.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Bit of a thread bump, but this has been eating at me a little lately.

What is the very simple solution to this problem?

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

I was wrong car nack was right. But the simple solution to lift two robot was a robot that could cover the bar with a thin material so when the two other hanging robots went to hang they would be suspended on thin material "bar cover" not on the bar. The problems with suspending two robots were. First carrying the weight of two robots. This would not be a problems because the bar not the bar cover carry the load. Second, How do teams know where to hang from on your robot without destroying it. This is not a problem with a bar cover because they teams would hang on the bar just as they were designed to do. The third issues was time required for the task. Again, the bar cover solves this as long as the bar cover is placed first the other hanging bots now need only to lift a inch not 20 to get the bonus. So then why didn't team 107 make a bar cover? Not enough consistent hanging team that hung from the top bar.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Exactly the discussion that 341 had. We actually toyed around with the idea of making a 469 style robot, combined with the covering idea to make the ultimate stationary robot that could end a match. However, in the end we sort of lost our "guts" for pursuing the 469 strategy and quickly realized that while the covering would work, it was not really worth the manufacturing effort or engineering resources.
It will be interesting to see how some teams decide to modify their machines for off-season events. Should be a very fun off-season.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

That's exactly what I was talking about too. The problem was it just took you out of the game too long to do it.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

This is exactly what we did. We had a tremendously consistent hanger (that let us down the last match at Championship due to a loose set screw...), and a bar covering system.

The problem with the bar covering system is that when we were rammed -- hard -- while elevated at FLR, the bar covering system was knocked askew and came into contact with the ball return mechanism. We were not penalized (red-carded) because Dante in his mercy and good-refereemanship determined that the ramming by an opposing robot meant that our opponent had caused the penalty, so it would not count against us...

...but he told us to get it fixed so that it couldn't happen again, so we had to pull it off. T'was sad.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

While there was never a double suspension, elimination scores were much higher than qualifier scores. Car Nack gets a split decision on this one-- #1 is wrong, #2 is correct.

Re: Car Nack Predicts 2010-1
 

Even after ship, we were still working on a "bar coverer". But once we saw the wonderful diversity of hangers during week one events we abandoned the idea.