[MCC] Minimum Competitive Concept 2014

[BJC]

Isaac Rife "IKE" usually posts up a thread like this once a year or so. I think its a pretty interesting thought exercise.
MCC 2013
MCC 2012
MCC 2011

To borrow his words:
Each year I am amazed by what teams come up with to compete in FRC. Teams have a ton of wonderful ideas and some even see good execution of those ideas.
I would like this thread to focus on the "Minimum Competitive Concept" for a robot for 2014. It is often easy to identify all the possible tasks you could have a robot do. Prioritizing those tasks, and realizing it in the form of a competitive robot is in my opinion much more impressive.

If you haven't watched the Simbotics Strategy Presentation, please do before responding to this thread. Especially review the "Golden Rules 1&2".

Assumptions are that one of the primary goals of the MCC is to play in elims (not necessarily win on Einstein), and your team has mid-pack to lower fabrication resources.
Please list your assumptions, strategy to seed high, estimate of a winning score, and what robot design elements would achieve this score.

I'll toss my two cents in later.

Cheers, Bryan

[Steven Donow]

It's been a few months since the thought of last season's MCC has come to mind, but it's definitely a slightly trickier one this year. At just about every event, the most desirable robots (at least, in my opinion/experience) were the best, simple, inbounders which, I'd say meet the goal of an MCC. A simple intake in/out that can be achieved by rookie teams and just about all teams. Two excellent examples in New England were rookie teams 4908 and 5112 (unfortunately I don't have a picture). Two simple, effective inbounders that were able to be competitive with 5112 captaining an alliance at RIDE.

[XaulZan11]

The absolute minimum would be a kit bot with a surgical tubing trampoline on top of it. This robot, which could have been built in a weekend, should be picked at eliminations at most regionals and likely all districts.

[Kevin Sheridan]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

The absolute minimum would be a kit bot with a surgical tubing trampoline on top of it. This robot, which could have been built in a weekend, should be picked at eliminations at most regionals and likely all districts.

Or a lawn chair. 687 was the 9th pick at LA this year with a kit bot drive train COTS drivetrain and a lawn chair strapped to the top for inbounding.

[Woolly]

In many cases, teams could effectively get assists by merely trapping the ball against the wall. In that case, MCC becomes the bare minimum for a desirable drivetrain, combined with reliability, and intelligent drivers capable of heavy yet penalty-free defense.

In fact, at the Missouri State Fair (a 2v2 event with a shorter field, mind you), our practice bot broke both it's shooter and collector just before Finals 3. Neither us nor 2164 shot a ball in autonomous, and Teleop amounted to us playing defense while 2164 shot trusses and scored 1s. That was until the last 10 seconds where we broke off of defense to push a ball into the low goal for the winning score.

Now let's be honest, 8 Wheel 6CIM dual speed drivetrains may be a bit out of the price range of many teams. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see well-geared single speed 6CIM or 4CIM kitbots or drive-in-a-day bots with good drivers capable of smart, penalty-free defense be incredibly high picks at a regional. So long as they can trap or push for assists, and shut down some high powered offensive bots, they're a huge credit to their alliance.

[Arpan]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sheridan

Or a lawn chair. 687 was the 9th pick at LA this year with a kit bot drive train COTS drivetrain and a lawn chair strapped to the top for inbounding.

Their drive was a 6-cim 2 speed milled WCD on vexpro traction wheels IIRC. About as COTs as 254's, except for the gearboxes.

[Kevin Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Arpan

Their drive was a 6-cim 2 speed milled WCD on vexpro traction wheels IIRC. About as COTs as 254's, except for the gearboxes.

I thought that the frame was COTS too but honestly it doesn't matter. A kit bot drive train with their driver would have done just as good. Their decision to remove the top part of the bot that wasn't working at LA was an example of great outside of the box thinking and a gutsy call. They showed that the minimum design to be a competitive team this year involved more match strategy and quick thinking rather than robot design (and they were a finalist at Las Vegas after they got the top half working).

[josesantos]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sheridan

I thought that the frame was COTS too but honestly it doesn't matter. A kit bot drive train with their driver would have done just as good. Their decision to remove the top part of the bot that wasn't working at LA was an example of great outside of the box thinking and a gutsy call. They showed that the minimum design to be a competitive team this year involved more match strategy and quick thinking rather than robot design (and they were a finalist at Las Vegas after they got the top half working).

Thanks for the kind words. I'm very proud of what our team was able to accomplish given the circumstances, though frankly it was pretty shocking finding all this out from the other side of the state. (Alumni problems, I suppose. )
To set the record straight regarding our drive train: It was supposed to be a COTS VersaChassis WCD (much like Team Copioli's), but due to extended shipping delays we had to machine the tubing ourselves and lathe out some spacers to use #35 sprockets/chain instead of belts/pulleys.

[Lil' Lavery]

In all honestly, the MCC for most events in 2014 would simply be great drivers and the ability to receive from the human player.

When 1712 prioritized our design, the ability to pass significantly outranked the ability to truss (which outranked the ability to score in the high goal). During our subsequent design and brainstorming processes, we didn't arrive at a shooter/intake geometry that would allow us to have the level of passing ability we desired before our downselect, so we opted not to shoot. In the end, that ended up generally working in our favor. We arrived at a single-intake design with a significant area to catch the ball (particularly useful for inbounding, but occasionally for catching trusses as well) driven by a 6-CIM 6WD with versa wheels. We were selected at all three of our events, including MAR Championship. Being able to score easily in the 1-pt goal was definitely a benefit as well (we quite often were the finisher on our alliances, including in two of our elimination alliances), and a consistent 16 point autonomous was quite useful.

[Sohaib]

We built a robot that could inbound, and pass back to the human player and a goalie pole. Much different approach than 5136, we didn't have a pick-up, and could only get a ball by means of a human player. We also had a goalie pole, and would probably have been much more competitive had we heard of Cheesy Vision before championships.

The unfortunate problem for us was the parts for our inbound mechanism didn't come in until before championship.

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

The absolute minimum would be a kit bot with a surgical tubing trampoline on top of it.

And lots of ballast!

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

The absolute minimum would be a kit bot with a surgical tubing trampoline on top of it. This robot, which could have been built in a weekend, should be picked at eliminations at most regionals and likely all districts.

The "bounce pass" possession was called very inconsistently (and oftentimes, not at all) before the World Championship.

[RunawayEngineer]

Originally Posted by inkling16

I think it tends to be a good strategy as well, however you have to hedge your bets.

I would rather make the elims with a partner who I don't want than not make elims at all.

By all means, hedge your bets and try to get numbers on the board to get noticed.
I just worry that many teams think that the only way to win/get picked is the "primary" game, so they don't look for alternatives. Meanwhile, the captains of seeds 1-3 are digging through data to find any means to differentiate between the middle 12 robots.

[Chris is me]

I would argue the minimum competitive concept did not even need floor pickup. The ability to receive a ball from a human player and kiss pass it / spit the ball out is the minimum that was really needed to be competitive. Alternatively, a robot that was only capable of receiving the ball and then giving it back to the human player was a good robot.

We definitely would have had a better season if we built 5136's robot than what we fielded. 5254 had a very similar robot and was very competitive at its events this year.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I would argue the minimum competitive concept did not even need floor pickup. The ability to receive a ball from a human player and kiss pass it / spit the ball out is the minimum that was really needed to be competitive. Alternatively, a robot that was only capable of receiving the ball and then giving it back to the human player was a good robot.

We definitely would have had a better season if we built 5136's robot than what we fielded. 5254 had a very similar robot and was very competitive at its events this year.

I strongly disagree. By adding the floor pickup the MCC also becomes a reasonable contender for being the middle bot in a 3 bot no truss cycle. Still worth a fair number of points. It's a tactical flexibility that is simple enough to add to be worth it.

Typically floor pickups are considered a nice to have, but with only one game piece they become more important. Oh, HP inbounds bad, or robot is hit and misses getting the ball? Suddenly you're out an assist.