Team 95 Bot capabilities, take a look.

[archiver]

Posted by Lee Sussman at 03/06/2001 8:45 PM EST


Student on team #95, Lebanon Robotics Team, LRT, from Lebanon Highschool and Crrel.



Hey everyone! I would just like to throw some info about our bot out into the general fray of things. Hopefully people will see this, and it will make negotiating and strategizing easier. We have designed a Bot that will play a lot of the match itself, and if people can see our strategy beforehand and be prepared to buy into it, propose changes, or present a completely different strategy altogether when we get to the actual talking phase before the match, that makes things run more smoothly for all of us.

Ok, so this is how we work:
The bare-bones gameplan calls for all of our allies to just get across the field and into the end zone as soon as possible, one being towed on a stretcher if possible. While this is happening, we will aquire the first goal and bring it to the player station to be loaded. At 20 seconds (or when our allies are out of our way), we will start moving across the field, go over the bridge, and get the second goal. At 40 seconds, we will then go back onto the bridge and balance it with both goals in our possetion. At this point, all allies should be in the end zone, with the stop buttons pressed. We will stop as soon as we are balanced, and this should all be under the 59 second mark. We HAVE tested the bot, and we know that we can do this in those time constraints. If this is succesful, we will get approx. 400 pts. If we go over into the next time multiplier, we will get approx. 320 pts.

Some other possibilities include:
an ally can put one of the large balls onto the far goal, and/or another large ball between the bridge and far goal which we can pick up and put on the other goal.

Our Bot is very flexible, so we can also fit into almost any other good game plan that is out there. We can manipulate goals incredibly well, we can manipulate either large OR small balls very well, we can manipulate the bridge, we can drag a stretcher, and we are fast, so if nessecary, we can adapt. Of course, if there are any other useful bot capabilities in our alliances, new possibilities can be worked out.

I hope that this is helpful to anyone else out there, and that it can help to facilitate the strategising portions of the competitions. See you all there!!!


Lee Sussman, team 95

[archiver]

Posted by Paul Dickman at 03/08/2001 9:25 AM EST


Coach on team #312, Heat Wave, from Lakewood High School and Baxter Healthcare of Tampa Bay.


In Reply to: Team 95 Bot capabilities, take a look.
Posted by Lee Sussman on 03/06/2001 8:45 PM EST:



Hi Lee,

The name of this game is beat the clock. The strategy you described has a few flaws. To do the task you described, you need alliance partners who can reach the end zone without the aid of the bridge. That means they go under the rail. More realistically, your partners "will" need to use the bridge, which means they (2 robots)"piggy-back" over the bridge. The reality is that coordinating that task takes precious time (10-20 seconds). Many robots move slowly and drivers have a difficult time aligning their robots. Let's assume they accomplish this task and reach the end zone in 30 seconds. Meanwhile, you have grabbed the goal and loaded it with black balls. Woops, the bridge is now down on the far side. Your robot now has to tip the bridge back towards you. Another 20-30 seconds to do that. The clock now reads 1:10-1:00 minutes, maybe a 2.5 multiplier. Assume you do tip the bridge. Now you have to climb over the bridge with a loaded goal. If your robot is as fast as you describe, power + traction problems will be an issue.(Another 20 seconds to cross) Clock is now at 40 seconds with a 2 multiplier still possible. You crossed the bridge and perfectly grab the 2nd goal in 10 seconds, now the clock is at 30, 1.5 multiplier, maybe???. You now begin to back up onto the bridge with 2 goals attached; the power + traction issue is now doubled. Now you have to balance the bridge. Like most robots holding 2 goals, this will take 15-30 seconds. Now the buzzer sounds signaling the end of the match and a 1.0 multiplier. Lets add up your score: 2 robots in end zone + 10 balls in the goal= 30 points x 4 (balancing 2 goals)= 120 points. I hope that you see my point???

[archiver]

Posted by Lee Sussman at 03/08/2001 9:04 PM EST


Student on team #95, Lebanon Robotics Team, LRT, from Lebanon Highschool and Crrel.


In Reply to: Re: Team 95 Bot capabilities, take a look.
Posted by Paul Dickman on 03/08/2001 9:25 AM EST:



thanks for your input. All that I can say is that we will need to play the matches to suit our allies. Our bot is perfectly capable of doing what I said, including pushing down the bridge. the power and traction issues are taken care of because we actually lift the goal up. what happens is that we are pulled onto our two rear wheels (we have a 6 wheel assembly) which then gives all the weight of the bot AND the goal on those two powered wheels. In this way, we can turn on a dime, have great traction, and have good speed. when we pick up the other goal, we now have all six wheels on the ground, with one goal held up on either side of the bot, giving us even more traction. then, because of the large weight, we can balance the bridge very quickly. we don't need to worry about any of the problems of moving goals, because none of the castors touch the floor. it is all done on our own wheels.
The big problem is getting our allies accross, and this we can play around with once we start seeing what other bots are capable of. Seeya there!

[archiver]

Posted by Lee Sussman at 03/08/2001 9:04 PM EST


Student on team #95, Lebanon Robotics Team, LRT, from Lebanon Highschool and Crrel.


In Reply to: Re: Team 95 Bot capabilities, take a look.
Posted by Paul Dickman on 03/08/2001 9:25 AM EST:



thanks for your input. All that I can say is that we will need to play the matches to suit our allies. Our bot is perfectly capable of doing what I said, including pushing down the bridge. the power and traction issues are taken care of because we actually lift the goal up. what happens is that we are pulled onto our two rear wheels (we have a 6 wheel assembly) which then gives all the weight of the bot AND the goal on those two powered wheels. In this way, we can turn on a dime, have great traction, and have good speed. when we pick up the other goal, we now have all six wheels on the ground, with one goal held up on either side of the bot, giving us even more traction. then, because of the large weight, we can balance the bridge very quickly. we don't need to worry about any of the problems of moving goals, because none of the castors touch the floor. it is all done on our own wheels.
The big problem is getting our allies accross, and this we can play around with once we start seeing what other bots are capable of. Seeya there!