Ultimate Ascent Strategies

[Jay O'Donnell]

Hey everyone,
Our team is currently brainstorming stategies for all three parts of the game, and we wanted to hear everyone elses input! This is not for robot designs, just for ways to score or otherwise play the game. Any idea could end up helping our team or any other one.
Thanks in advance, Jay

[Mephisto]

Right now we are stuck between a defensive climbing robot and an offensive scoring robot. Personally I want to have a good idea of how many people are going to be building each bot so that ours isn't one of a million defensive bots or vice-versa.

[karomata]

Our team has developed a few strategies:

Butterfly Bot: have extremedies that drop down and make our robot wider, while staying within the 54 inch diameter, this gives us good defense abilities. With that we are able to sit infront of the feederstation and completely cut if off from being used.

God bot: Do everything perfectly and make waffles/pancakes on the side (our team has gotten way to far into trying to do that)

Defense bot: This is my personal strategy and I find it very realistic and feasible. Have a short robot that can reliably hang a 30 and drive under the pyramid, feed alliance partners, possibly pick up off the floor, reliably score in the low goal, and play awesome defense. Would anybody think that a robot like that would be picked at competitions? I'm trying to convince my teammates that it could be successful.

There are some others but my fingers as well as my mind are tired, I'll post later when I'm a bit more rested and have more to report on of value.

[Mephisto]

Originally Posted by karomata

Our team has developed a few strategies:

Butterfly Bot: have extremedies that drop down and make our robot wider, while staying within the 54 inch diameter, this gives us good defense abilities. With that we are able to sit infront of the feederstation and completely cut if off from being used.

God bot: Do everything perfectly and make waffles/pancakes on the side (our team has gotten way to far into trying to do that)

Defense bot: This is my personal strategy and I find it very realistic and feasible. Have a short robot that can reliably hang a 30 and drive under the pyramid, feed alliance partners, possibly pick up off the floor, reliably score in the low goal, and play awesome defense. Would anybody think that a robot like that would be picked at competitions? I'm trying to convince my teammates that it could be successful.

There are some others but my fingers as well as my mind are tired, I'll post later when I'm a bit more rested and have more to report on of value.

I liked defense before, but I think getting your bot to the 30 is a lot harder than everyone is making it out to be. I think that a sturdy scoring bot would be reliable and score high enough to make it worth doing.

Plus it would look cooler at demos.

[Sean Raia]

Originally Posted by karomata

Defense bot: This is my personal strategy and I find it very realistic and feasible. Have a short robot that can reliably hang a 30 and drive under the pyramid, feed alliance partners, possibly pick up off the floor, reliably score in the low goal, and play awesome defense. Would anybody think that a robot like that would be picked at competitions? I'm trying to convince my teammates that it could be successful.

This.

Also, your teams lifting mechanism in 2010 was very interesting... it was brought up a couple of times at our meeting today.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Sean Raia

This.

Also, your teams lifting mechanism in 2010 was very interesting... it was brought up a couple of times at our meeting today.

Is there a video anyone has of this? My team has often been talking about lifting mechanisms from 2004 and 2010.

[Sean Raia]

Originally Posted by Jay Money 1058

Is there a video anyone has of this? My team has often been talking about lifting mechanisms from 2004 and 2010.

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2010ma_qf3m2
Watch towards the end (2:07 on). I believe many other teams used a similar method that year, but theirs was the first I witnessed live.

Now, imagine one of those lifters on both sides of your robot.

[Joon Park]

A few of my friends predicted that the majority of the teams would have similar realizations about climbing to the 30 and playing defense. Enough to worry them that too many teams would be doing this exact strategy.

I can't decide what will happen: it seems that many teams would have learned the importance of the "endgame" points due to last year's game, but I still feel that rookies and powerhouse teams will be drawn to the traditional throwing and scoring method simply because it is the "main" way to score. The difference between rookies and powerhouse teams being that powerhouse teams will of course be able to climb as well, and would probably be more accurate at throwing than rookie teams.

[karomata]

Originally Posted by Sean Raia

This.

Also, your teams lifting mechanism in 2010 was very interesting... it was brought up a couple of times at our meeting today.

Now that you mention it, one of our prototyping teams is trying to create a design, in which our robot goes up to the corner of the pyramid, latches on with a mechanism similar to our 2010 robot, then lifts itself up. Then, using an identical mechanism on the other side, grabs the pole and flips itself over again, and it does that 2 or 3 times to reach the top.

[EricDrost]

Have two robots "pretend" to climb on either side of your pyramid. The other alliance can't get by for fear of penalties. /troll

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by EricDrost

Have two robots "pretend" to climb on either side of your pyramid. The other alliance can't get by for fear of penalties. /troll

G25 ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE may not blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction.

[Walter Deitzler]

Well fans didn't work for defense last year, but we all know Frisbees can have their direction changed more easily by wind or air. Sit under scoring bins with fan anyone?

[Wildcats1378]

So far, our favorite strategy is getting 4 preloads, climbing to the third tier, then dumping all 4 disks in. Bam, 50 points.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Wildcats1378

So far, our favorite strategy is getting 4 preloads, climbing to the third tier, then dumping all 4 disks in. Bam, 50 points.

Remember they need to be the red/blue disks (depending on what allaince you are on).

[ProgrammerTori]

Originally Posted by Wildcats1378

So far, our favorite strategy is getting 4 preloads, climbing to the third tier, then dumping all 4 disks in. Bam, 50 points.

Add in some low goal capabilities and have a reliable climb and I could see it working. I'm wary of shooters because they're easy prey for defense. But an accurate shooter with reliable autonomous will crush any climb bot for points.