Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

At the Buckeye Regional this weekend, it seemed that many of the teams believed that hanging was fairly unimportant, and thus were told not to hang on multiple occasions (in most cases, we did anyways). It is my opinion that hanging is an entirely situational decision as are many tactical decisions on the field.

As an example, if you are playing in the near zone and there are zero balls in said zone at the last 20 seconds, it may or may not be worth it to go ahead and elevate to get those two points.

In another case, the middle zone has mostly been a dead zone in most of the matches I watched. As such, there doesn't seem to be much of a loss (and pretty good gains) if the middle bot elevates, even if it takes 20 seconds to do so. Most alliances that I saw could not consistently take two balls from the middle and score them within 20 seconds even if there was no robot in the center.

On the flip side, if you are in the near zone, and somehow all twelve balls are there, you should probably just score them. Also, if you are defending and there are many balls there, it would be wise to stay.

I will admit that this is a somewhat selfish post because my team's robot does hang. However, it seemed as if the teams thought of us as just a hanging robot, when in reality we did so much more than that. While I would not pick a robot solely based on its ability to hang, I believe that said ability in combination with a respectable ability to perform another task is a powerful asset to most alliances.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Pretty simple for me. At time XYZ, can you score 3 points (or stop 3)? If not, hang.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

I agree, I the Finals in Troy it was more benifitial to stay and play defense in the far zone (where we were all match) then to go and hang for 2.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

This is an extremely strategic game and I don't think there is a single answer that fits every robot and situation.

What I will point out is that many of the top robots this year can hang and have done so consistently in both quals and elims (1114, 330, 33, 254/968, 1717). That list is just a small, fairly random, sampling of good robots that hang consistently (heavily/completely slanted towards the last week).

If you can hang consistently and you feel that you would not be able to score 2 balls in the time it takes you to hang, in most situations you should probably hang.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

In my opinion, if you can hang, hang. If not, score the balls in autonomous.

In autonomous, teams are relatively uncontested. I'd much rather have a team score 2 robots in autonomous from the mid-zone than hang at the end. You're doing a couple things:
- you're getting the two balls in the mid-zone either to your own side or out of the way so the other alliance can't score them
- the point value is the same as a single hang
- the robot can then work on getting the remaining balls in it's zone

I'd rather take a strong robot that can kick well from mid-zone than a robot that can just hang because they are far more useful to the alliance. But I'd also never stop a team from hanging because I don't think that mid-zone teams can score > 2 balls in 20 seconds very well.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

For my team, we have found hanging to be really important. In the last 20 seconds of the match, we have found that there won't be enough balls in our home zone to score more than our hanger will allow. Those two points from hanging is a much more reliable way of getting 2 points in the last 20 seconds, seeing how our alliance partners can score in those 20 seconds also.

Don't forget in the finale, the opponents may have the opportunity to get a red card, so many will be more hesitant to defend balls scored in the last 20 seconds, which allows your alliance partners to score freely.

Another thing, is that if you have 2+ robots hanging on your alliance, your opponents would have a hard time making up 4+ points that you receive from hanging.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

If you are attending CMP, you better believe that getting elevated/hanging bonus points will be important.
It will determine quite a few matches, ESPECIALLY in eliminations.
AND, you will see at least one team in almost every match do it.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

I've had a slightly different experience than you have, it seems. At the regionals I attended, scores did increase overall, but usually not as significantly has you have described (except when say, an opposing alliance's defense bot was dead then entire match). As for usefulness in eliminations, it varies. I saw a few matches at Boilermaker in which 2081 hanging decided the match. Also, as a side effect of hanging, if the opponents play defense too aggressively, they may get a penalty (or in the case of Finals match 1 at BMR, a red card).

Under the assumption of a constant rate of scoring, 20 seconds for 2 points is actually fairly efficient if you actually only take 20 seconds since you get what is usually more than 1/6 of the total score for you alliance in 1/6 of the time.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Hanging is situational, but can be critical. In a close game, one (or two!) hanging robots makes the difference between a win and a loss, and especially given that close win/losses garner a lot of QPs, it's very important.

Two otherwise-equally matched teams play in an elimination match. One has good hangers, the other does not. Who wins?

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We built our robot as a strong mid-fielder -- one that can consistently and effectively funnel balls from the midfield into our alliance's scoring zone. If left alone, we did that very well, and won by a lot. If defended against, we tied up all of the balls in the middle most of the game, keeping the score rather low, and then hung to win -- and thus won by a little.

This usually worked. It would not be a valid strategy if we were not a consistent hanger.

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So that's the answer to your question: the importance of elevation depends on how you built your robot to win games.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Something interesting to bring up. At the SBPLI Regional none of the 6 robots in the finals could hang or elevate themselves.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Identical situation at Buckeye if I remember correctly, although not true at the Boilermaker Regional. Honestly though, at Buckeye, there were very few robots that could hang that were really any good for anything else.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Right. This happened at L.A., in the finals. Since 330 and 171 hung consistently (almost) every match, and on the opposing alliance only 968 could hang (and they didn't do it every match), they had to have at least a 2 point cushion at the end of the match just from scoring balls. I thought the two alliances were very well-matched and very nearly equal at scoring balls, so 294, 968, and 980 really had to work to get that 2 point cushion. It made 330 and 1717 an absolutely deadly combination.

There were 2 hanging robots in the finals at SVR, teams 254 and 100. It caused an interesting situation, because when one went to hang, the other had to follow, or risk falling behind 2 points.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

One thing that i noticed in Boston is that in finals (especially when double teamed) we were blocking a lot of shots, easily more than two in the last 20 seconds. And because we were in the defensive zone we would have had to leave the zone before the last 20 seconds to avoid contact with the other alliance if they tried to hang.

~DK

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Interestingly during Qualifications we had one team hang within the first 20 seconds of tele-op stopping us for going us under the tunnel after all the balls where out of their offensive zone. Hanging can defiantly give an advantage to an alliance, but a good scorer could easily make up the 2 points in the last 20 seconds.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

How did they do that while remaining elevated?

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

I would highly advise against a robot stationed in its own defensive zone trying to hang. This happened to us in the quarters at SVR. Our alliance stationed 846 in the defensive zone, and they did a great job of blocking shots up until that 20 second mark. Then they went to go hang. I wasn't watching them because we were in the offensive zone, pumping in balls (3129 single-handedly scored 8 points that match :D). While 846 did hang successfully, I was told by our human player and another alliance member that our opponents used the opening to score 6 shots. Final score: 13 to 10, them.

If robots on your alliance are going to hang, they should not be playing goalie. They should be in the front or neutral zones.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

I would say that being able to elevate is a worth while mechanism if the robot can not easily make up the 2 points of elevation. At Traverse City BOB could have possibly made it into finals if we had a working arm. We lost the deciding match of semi finals by 2 so it is debatable if we could've actually won in 4th round of semi final match.

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Our drivers couldn't see if they where completely clear or if there would be contact. They where too afraid of making contact in some way and damaging ourselves sine our electronics are mounted pretty close to out top.

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In Ann Arbor finals match 3, our two points via hanging won us the Regional, and sent us off to the Michigan State competition.

I believe the first time 1448 and 1328 hang together the final score of the match was 5-5... so they tied the match just via that.'

So, yes, IMHO hanging will be what separates good teams from great. Teams that can have others suspend off of them (Us and 1448 as far as I know) will be in great demand once they can do that consistently. One of the teams in the final game will probably have a team that can suspend someone else on the team, and that will be why they have gotten that far.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

I disagree, I don't think suspensions will be very common at Championships if they happen at all and I don't think there will be a single suspension on Einstein or even in the division finals

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

Hanging is useful if more than one team in your alliance can do it; but if only one can then it's not really enough of a difference to be a major swing. It's harder for two teams to score four points in those twenty seconds via goals than it is for one team to score two points, because they tend to get in each others' ways.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

How important is hanging? Do a little math.

On average, how many points are going to be scored per match? Then, calculate how often they'll be scored.

For instance I'd wager saying that each team scored 2-4 points per match during week one (in fact that's probably a bit high). It's pretty simple to see that hanging in that context is HUGE.

In the fourth week, there were routinely scores up in the 8-10 point range during eliminations. That 2 points might save you once or twice, but it's a lot less important.

At nationals? It may be (on average) even less important, as robots improve and scoring improves.

It's a risk vs. reward thing. Do the math on the rate of scoring, and figure out which is more important - taking the time to hang or trying to score another 2 balls. My guess is that by nationals unless you hang in under 10 seconds every single time, then mathematically it's a wash.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

You also have to take into account the availability of balls.

Let's figure that an alliance has two robots playing offense and one on defense.

There might be a point in the last 15-20 seconds of the match where they just scored a significant number of balls they control and will have to wait a while for the balls to be put back into play, controlled, and then scored. It would be much easier for the robots to then just turn around and hang on the tower.

That timing might just the difference between a finalist and winner.

While I agree that hanging will be less valuable in the Championship eliminations, as ball scoring becomes more prevalent, I think we'll definitely see it a few times.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

At philly, both alliances in finals didn't have hangers either. However, all of the hanging alliances lost in semis by very slim margins in matches that could have gone either way (we got knocked out by 1 penalty point).

For us, during qualifiers we usually won by big margins (not the best thing for QPs) and hanging turned mainly into a "seal the win" thing and also showing off to the scouters. For elims, our midfield parter, 1640, could do some decent scoring from midfield, and could jump the bump to offense, we would swap zones to go for the hang. An important factor though was 87 being able to hold down the opponent's goals and keep the score opponent score from jumping while we had no active midfield bot.

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Hanging mattered a lot more to get us into the tournament (at #1 seed :D -- saying that never gets old!), but it didn't matter much once in the tournament itself, because the games were for the most part blowouts, with one notable exception*.

That is to say, if you look at the scores of the qualification games, only two of them were won by 2 points or less where we hung -- but the fact that we *could* hang reliably altered the strategy of our opponents, and that made the difference in a lot of games. FIRST games, just like most games, have a large psychological component, and if you can get your opponent reacting to you instead of mastering their own thing, that's a big advantge.

*In the semifinals match two, we lost 7-8, and did not hang because we had a glitch in our hanger and didn't take a time out to fix it -- so that would have been critical.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

1551- I saw you guys at FLR, and you have an absolutely amazing hanger. I still am not sure how it works.

Re: Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension
 

It's pretty straightforward, and came in at about 16 lbs, including a CIM.

Four-start screw (3/8" x 3'), Banebots 4:1 transmission, flexible-but-not-too-flexible shaft coupling, a thrust bearing, some aluminum tubing, some extruded aluminum and delrin sliders, some gubbins to hold it all together, two limit switches, a ratchet-like catch on the bottom, and a big ol' hook on top.

We built our robot so that everything but the mecanum drive was completely modular -- even our electronics are held on by velcro and nothing else -- and came up with five or six lift prototypes. This was the one that worked best for us, so we bolted it on top (literally). :D

It's a shame we never fell over, though. That righter took some effort to make just right, and we never used it. (Then again, if we fall over fast enough, we literally bounce right back to our 'feet'... Making this robot a bit like our team, come to think of it!)