Drivetrain Only Strategies???

[Greg Shaw]

For a variety of reasons there is a chance that our 2nd year FRC team might make it to the initial event with just a drivetrain--we are hoping that we can also build an arm that can tip down the bridge so we can drive over it or maybe something better. However, for the purpose of this thread lets assume that we have a fully functional drivetrain and nothing else. How can we benefit an alliance from a strategy standpoint and what should we be doing during robot driving practice to prepare for these tasks. Please give feedback on what we could do from both sides of the field--although i understand we will be stuck on one side unless someone tips the bridge down for us. The more ideas that veteran strategist can send me the better.

[Becca334]

Would you guys be able to cross the bump? If you could, playing defense or maybe a ball collector could be good. Help make sure your teammates get basketballs (since your team's feeder is on the opposite side of the hoops)

But if you can't cross the bridge, make sure you can cross the bump.

I really suggest that you make at least a small way to score.

If not, the best thing you can do is have a really good bridge actuator, and have the ability to pick up balls and shoot/feed them to your alliance.

If you can't score, then the only reason an alliance will want you is if you can make it easier and faster for them to score, by going around to the other side and feeding excess balls and feeding balls from your alley to them. You also need to be able to work around opponents without getting penalties, and a bit of driver practice, even if it's on Thursday in the practice court. I know I'd choose an alliance partner with those capabilities.

This will make any team a valuable alliance partner. Other helpful things is to have a wide robot chassis so it's easier to fit 3 robots on the bridge in the endgame.


If you ever need any help, please feel free to ask any teams here on CD, especially 256. We're more than happy to help!

[Nikkocharger]

Being able to balance would be a good one. How about designing a mechanism that shifts weight (such as the battery or air-compressor) around the chassis for fine tunning. Also I think it would be good to be able to pick up balls and give them to your alliance. Plus you would need an extreme amount of torque since you'll probably be playing defense.

[AlecMataloni]

Do you have enough motors to make any attachments? One thing I could think of is to make a simple collector/dumper attachment. you could play defense on your opponent by collecting the balls on their side of the court and dump them over the barrier onto your alliance's side of the court. This would not only satisfy the defense aspect you're looking for, but also make you a viable partner for teams that can score, but have issues with traversing the field.

Besides that, You should focus most of your efforts on balancing. If you are a consistent balancing robot, I'm confident that you will be picked for eliminations at whatever regional you attend. Make sure you have your drive base working if you don't have it all set up, because you'll need to practice quite a bit!

[thefro526]

If you're only going to show up to a competition with a drivetrain, then I'd suggest a few things.

-It needs to be reliable, any failure is going to make your machine completely useless. (Not to mention make your team look bad.)
-It should be able to cross the bump in the center of the field.
-It should be able to climb the bridge - even if it can't tip the bridge down itself.
-It shouldn't be full size, make it as small as reasonable, you'll have a shot of being picked just as a third machine on the bridge.

If you've got a little bit more time, and have achieved all of the above objectives then you could look into building a very simple and effective scoring device. I'd suggest something along the lines of a hopper on top of the robot that can hold three balls. Add a simple mechanism at the front or rear of the hopper to allow the balls to fall out of the hopper and into the lowest goal. If the hopper is human filled, it's incredibly simple to build and use and you'll be an excellent alliance partner since you can run 3 balls at a time to a more capable scorer.

If you can swing it, throw a bridge device on there too, it doesn't need to be over complicated just a basic arm to tip the bridge down enough for you to get onto.

None of those things are difficult and could be built with what comes in the KOP and stuff you can buy from Home Depot or Lowes or a similar store. IMO, the robot I described above, would be an excellent second pick for many alliances since it can play a very strategic role when paired with two other capable machines.

Feel free to PM me for further explanation.

[BrendanB]

1. Make sure you can cross the bridge. (Standard kitbot will do this effectively)
2. Make an arm to knock down the bridge.
3. Practice balancing on a bridge if you can. The easier it is for you, the higher chance you have of being picked when everyone else sees how easy you can balance.
4. Echoing what Dustin said but make your robot small and easy to fit on the bridge for a triple balance.
5. In terms of simplicity and still being valuable see if you can make a hopper on the top of your robot with a roller to spit balls onto the floor so you can collect from the human players and take the balls to a scoring robot on your alliance.

Good luck!

[legogeek24]

The biggest help from us would be a ball feeder, so we wouldn't have to waste time crossing the field to gather more balls to score. Just shooting them across the bump to our scoring side of the field would help. At this point, I'd choose a third alliance partner who can feed balls to two scoring robots over a poor or mediocre scoring robot.

The other thing is, make sure you don't get penalties! Your drivers need to practice playing effective defense and ball herding without getting any penalties, because too many will ruin your chances for getting picked on an alliance.

My overall advice is this: if you only do one thing, but do it much better than any other robot at the competition, you'll get picked. It's as simple as that in my experience.

[Alex Cormier]

One of the better ideas for a robot this year is to go small. It's ok not to win many matches during qualifications. As long as you do a great job at getting on the bridge and taking up as little space as possible. The elite and top teams will notice and you will be huge come eliminations.

[Madison]

I've selected a fair number of "boxes with wheels"* as alliance partners over the years and we have good success with them provided a few things are true:

-- they understand their role and embrace it.

-- they have a completely developed understanding of the rules, but also how the game plays. They need to understand the metagame as much as they understand the real game and be able to interfere with our opponents in intelligent, effective ways. Driving around and smashing into things won't cut it.

This year, there is a very simple, valuable role a team without a functioning basketball manipulator can fill. It involves the bridge, of course.

If you're unsure that you'll be able to achieve a mechanism to lower the bridge, instead make certain that your robot has a flat surface that is, say, 10.5 - 11" above the carpet. Make it 3-4" deep and at both edges of your robot. Now, beyond that, build a taller frame -- two vertical members or even flags could suffice here -- that will hit the bridge when your robot drives below it.

The idea here is that you're going to park your robot below the bridge and act as a hard stop for one or two balancing robots. By reducing the range of motion of the bridge, you can make balancing occur more quickly and more reliably. You then need to back away from the bridge at the end of the match so you aren't touching it.

Want to get fancy? Put some switches or other sensors in place where the bridge will sit on your robot. Use those switches to provide feedback to your drive team that they can use to let their partners know if they're balanced or not (e.g. if the switches are pressed, the bridge isn't balanced).

If you could do this and you could position your robot on the field reliably, you'd probably be fairly successful on the field -- maybe even top 8 at some events.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Madison

...This year, there is a very simple, valuable role a team without a functioning basketball manipulator can fill. It involves the bridge, of course.

If you're unsure that you'll be able to achieve a mechanism to lower the bridge, instead make certain that your robot has a flat surface that is, say, 10.5 - 11" above the carpet. Make it 3-4" deep and at both edges of your robot. Now, beyond that, build a taller frame -- two vertical members or even flags could suffice here -- that will hit the bridge when your robot drives below it.
....

I really like where Madison is going with this. I would suggest instead of vertical risers, to have angled risers so that driving under the bridge deeper will tilt it down for your teammates. Have a flag at the transition from the 10" flat zone to the angled (probably 30 degrees should work well.

If you build this, you could be very helpful with teams that do not have a bridge lowering device.

There is also a very very very very simple devices that can be made that can score almost as many points as a bridge balance. Very very very very simple...

[ThirteenOfTwo]

The super-simple bot:
1) Be able to quickly and reliably lower the bridge
2) Be able to cross the bump
3) Have an intake roller on the front of your robot
4) Let the intake push balls upwards onto a ramped box
5) When you run the intake backwards, the balls will roll out
6) Leave the top of the ramped box open so that human players can feed it
7) Make the drive as powerful as possible
8) Make the footprint as small as possible
9) Make the robot as heavy as possible

In a match:
1) At the beginning of each match, cross the bump
2) Keep opposing robots away from their key with ramming defense
3) When opposing robots miss their shots, grab the rebounds
4) When they score, go over to your inbounder station to receive balls
5) Ferry balls back to your own side of the field and give them to partners
6) Rinse, repeat
7) At the end of the match, lower the bridge and get on

Before alliance selection, sell yourself as a second pick. The above robot, with a practiced driver and the ability to cooperate with other teams, will almost certainly make it to eliminations and might even get snapped up near the bottom of the first round of selections. If you can't build the intake roller, at least build the ramped box with some sort of release and you'll only go a little later. If you can't lower the bridge or build the intake, at least build a powerful pushing drive and you might make it as a very late pick--this could actually give you a better chance at winning the tournament due to the serpentine draft.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

In a match:
1) At the beginning of each match, cross the bump
2) Keep opposing robots away from their key with ramming defense
3) When opposing robots miss their shots, grab the rebounds
4) When they score, go over to your inbounder station to receive balls
5) Ferry balls back to your own side of the field and give them to partners
6) Rinse, repeat
7) At the end of the match, lower the bridge and get on

Number 2 on your list is a huge liability. Even a single penalty with that strategy would knock that bot off my pick list completely.

[Jared Russell]

A tiny, tiny robot with the ability to...

1) Somehow transfer your balls to a partner in autonomous mode (could be as simple as a ramp that tips and rolls the balls to your partner)
2) Not take penalties
3) Climb the bridge

...will be a prized commodity during eliminations, even at the World Championship.

[iVanDuzer]

If your robot is lacking, then make up for it with a killer strategy. Crossing the barrier should be essential for a bare-bones bot. Get as much driver practice as possible. If you're coming into week 6 and still don't really have a manipulator built, scrap it, and devote all your time learning the rules backwards, frontwards and sideways. Learn how to drive carefully and defensively. At competition, have a bunch of scouts who watch where the offensive robots are scoring from. There will be many robots that can only score from a certain area (the key, for example): identify them and stop them from getting there. Constantly volunteer for being the second robot up on the bridge, so your partner can tilt it down for you to balance. Smart defense will be noticed by the top teams and will get you a spot in the elims of most regionals, regardless of scoring ability.