Unique robot design?

[MathFreak]

I feel like many teams have almost the same robot design this year: meaning that the chassis is designed so that the robot can take 'in' the totes. Does any team have a unique robot design or strategy? I believe our robot is a little different from the common dedign(its not fully built yet so i cant show you how it looks like). Pictures would be great!

[MrForbes]

You can't make a post like that, and not include pictures or drawings of your robot design!



I think we will see a whole bunch of unique robot designs over the next ten days.

[Joseph Smith]

You'll find plenty of people eager to share their unique designs in about two weeks. Until then I doubt you'll get much.

[MathFreak]

Right, we all will be presenting robots in about 10 days!
I asked that just because I didn't see what kind of team could get a remarkably high score. The field is separated this year and it's a totally different game from the others. The amount of score a robot can get is in a way limited(because of # of totes and those)…

[Zach101]

I feel like the two different designs this year are going to be able to lift the totes up on the outside of your robot or lift them up in the inside of your robot

[K-Dawg157]

Originally Posted by MathFreak

Right, we all will be presenting robots in about 10 days!
I asked that just because I didn't see what kind of team could get a remarkably high score. The field is separated this year and it's a totally different game from the others. The amount of score a robot can get is in a way limited(because of # of totes and those)…

I think that the highest scoring robots are going to be the ones that can move fast enough to complete a stacked tote set in autonomous, because that means that they are efficient and good at what they do.

Pair a robot that can do this with another that can get a noodle and put it on top of the stack, and we could have a high scoring match... very high scoring if the other robot can stack well too.

The highest score an alliance can get is 433. As Calculated in the document.

[ThunderousPrime]

Originally Posted by K-Dawg157

I think that the highest scoring robots are going to be the ones that can move fast enough to complete a stacked tote set in autonomous, because that means that they are efficient and good at what they do.

Pair a robot that can do this with another that can get a noodle and put it on top of the stack, and we could have a high scoring match... very high scoring if the other robot can stack well too.

The highest score an alliance can get is 433. As Calculated in the document.

Your Maximum Scoring Document is wrong in varying categories. First, you can't score both a stacked tote set and tote set. "A TOTE SET exists if all three (3) Yellow TOTES from an ALLIANCE are fully contained by the AUTO ZONE, but do not
meet the requirements of a STACKED TOTE SET, at the end of AUTO."

Also if you score 7 of your Litter pieces in RCs than you can score the other 3 pieces as unprocessed litter for 4pts each. You cannot score the opposing alliance's 4 pieces as unprocessed litter without incurring fouls. And speaking of incurring fouls the maximum score gets really interesting when you consider teams accidentally spilling their game pieces onto the other side of the field. There are no rules that say you cant score those pieces. Additionally if they descore your game pieces when they knock their game pieces over the step you gain the points they descored at the end of the match. Again, nothing says you cant rescore those pieces so that could increase your max score.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by MathFreak

I asked that just because I didn't see what kind of team could get a remarkably high score. The field is separated this year and it's a totally different game from the others. The amount of score a robot can get is in a way limited(because of # of totes and those)…

What do you consider to be a remarkably high score? We intend to score around 100 points per match. Would that be high, average, or low?

[Joe Johnson]

I think this year will be a year with more variation than typical. Yes, there will be a lot of elevators and those will certainly share a number of similarities, but after that, the sky's the limit.

There will be Double Stackers and there will be Stack On Stacks Stackers. There will be Landfill Munchers and Loading Station Loiterers.

And that is before we've even started talking Cans. Upright Cans Only Machines will be quite different from Knocked Over Can Machines which will be different from Step Can Grabber Machines.

Then there are noodles? There will be machines that are Noodle-Ignorers and machines that are Noodle-Centric.

Also, lets not forget that some teams will design in mechanisms for knocking over stacks while making it look like an accident for when they need their alliance partners to fall in the rankings. Those are going to be crazy looking rigs ;-) (no, no, no... ...just kidding).

Then there is the whole constrained Transport Configuration vs. virtually unlimited Competition Size. Not since bumpers rules effectively made "The Big Flop" illegal (I'm looking at YOU, Bill Beatty ;-) will we have robots with such imposing wheel bases driving on the Carpet Fields of FIRST.

Then there is the whole crazy (but maybe crazy like a fox) idea of I'm-building-for-Einstein-and-I-don't-care-if-I-rank-dead-last-during-the-qualifiers Strategy (cough, cough, simultaneous 4 can auton grab, cough, cough)*

Bottom line. I think this year will be a better than typical year for robot variety.

I will close with this. I can't/won't share the Overclocked 2015 Robot just yet, but I will say that we've nick named her "Scorpion" and she's worthy of the name.

Cheers,
Dr. Joe J.

*don't be a hater. I haven't let any cats out of any bags. With 1000's of FRC teams do you think your team was the ONLY team that thought long and hard about that idea? I myself stared long and hard into that abyss before shrinking back in horror (the horror, the long spindly, almost certainly rickety horror).

P.S. This is a very tongue in cheek reply. Don't take this too seriously. Lighten up. Really. JJ

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Then there is the whole crazy (but maybe crazy like a fox) idea of I'm-building-for-Einstein-and-I-don't-care-if-I-rank-dead-last-during-the-qualifiers Strategy (cough, cough, simultaneous 4 can auton grab, cough, cough)*

I could see a robot that was entirely a mechanism to grab containers from the center being very popular at the championship (if they can get there!). If it always won the center step race, or would always have enough force to pull the containers to their side, it would be able to cap the maximum stack score of any alliance significantly lower than I expect competitive alliances to score.

A robot built to do only this is attainable for a decent number of teams, but I don't know how many teams will be crazy enough to try it.

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by magnets

I could see a robot that was entirely a mechanism to grab containers from the center being very popular at the championship (if they can get there!). If it always won the center step race, or would always have enough force to pull the containers to their side, it would be able to cap the maximum stack score of any alliance significantly lower than I expect competitive alliances to score.

A robot built to do only this is attainable for a decent number of teams, but I don't know how many teams will be crazy enough to try it.

I don't trust any robot that can "get all four recycling bins in the center before anybody on the other side can get one." There will be very strong robots that can very quickly - during autonomous - get one recycling bin off the step. To think that you can get four before anybody else could get one is foolish.... With that thought, what happens if one of the four bins you are clamped onto during autonomous gets grabbed by a strong robot that can put all it's "pull" into that one recycling bin - and has an advantageous center of gravity? I can visualize the "4-bin grabber" getting yanked right over the step and out of commission for the entire match. And, it would be penalized with a foul....

I'd have to really see such a robot perform consistently before wanting to go into eliminations in St. Louis with it as an alliance member.

[ArtemusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I think this year will be a year with more variation than typical. Yes, there will be a lot of elevators and those will certainly share a number of similarities, but after that, the sky's the limit.

There will be Double Stackers and there will be Stack On Stacks Stackers. There will be Landfill Munchers and Loading Station Loiterers.

And that is before we've even started talking Cans. Upright Cans Only Machines will be quite different from Knocked Over Can Machines which will be different from Step Can Grabber Machines.

Then there are noodles? There will be machines that are Noodle-Ignorers and machines that are Noodle-Centric.

Also, lets not forget that some teams will design in mechanisms for knocking over stacks while making it look like an accident for when they need their alliance partners to fall in the rankings. Those are going to be crazy looking rigs ;-) (no, no, no... ...just kidding).

Then there is the whole constrained Transport Configuration vs. virtually unlimited Competition Size. Not since bumpers rules effectively made "The Big Flop" illegal (I'm looking at YOU, Bill Beatty ;-) will we have robots with such imposing wheel bases driving on the Carpet Fields of FIRST.

Then there is the whole crazy (but maybe crazy like a fox) idea of I'm-building-for-Einstein-and-I-don't-care-if-I-rank-dead-last-during-the-qualifiers Strategy (cough, cough, simultaneous 4 can auton grab, cough, cough)*

Bottom line. I think this year will be a better than typical year for robot variety.

I will close with this. I can't/won't share the Overclocked 2015 Robot just yet, but I will say that we've nick named her "Scorpion" and she's worthy of the name.

Cheers,
Dr. Joe J.

*don't be a hater. I haven't let any cats out of any bags. With 1000's of FRC teams do you think your team was the ONLY team that thought long and hard about that idea? I myself stared long and hard into that abyss before shrinking back in horror (the horror, the long spindly, almost certainly rickety horror).

P.S. This is a very tongue in cheek reply. Don't take this too seriously. Lighten up. Really. JJ

"Scorpion" you say. Sounds like design I had in mind, but have no team this year to implement any of my ideas
I suspect scorpion part is the one that loads noodles into the can?

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by ArtemusMaximus

"Scorpion" you say. Sounds like design I had in mind, but have no team this year to implement any of my ideas
I suspect scorpion part is the one that loads noodles into the can?

Pictures & videos soon, but your guess could not be further from the truth.

I can't swear we'll finish this beast on time our under weight but I will guarantee that if we manage to do so without having to jettison any major functionality or subsystem, we will have to explain the name to exactly zero folks who see this robot playing the game.

With that, I need to get back to work. One day of work left and then it's 100 or so of robots robots robots til Bag Time.

Dr. Joe J.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Pictures & videos soon, but your guess could not be further from the truth.

I can't swear we'll finish this beast on time our under weight but I will guarantee that if we manage to do so without having to jettison any major functionality or subsystem, we will have to explain the name to exactly zero folks who see this robot playing the game.

With that, I need to get back to work. One day of work left and then it's 100 or so of robots robots robots til Bag Time.

[IMG]

Dr. Joe J.

*looks at name of poster*
*looks at image*
I wouldn't expect any less than what I think you're doing

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by Joseph Smith

You'll find plenty of people eager to share their unique designs in about two weeks. Until then I doubt you'll get much.

I really don't see much reason for secrecy at this point... There will be no defense this year, so nobody can plan strategies to stop you... If you have a brilliant idea and somebody tries to mimic you at this point, they are already so far behind that they are not likely a threat to be better than you - and could probably use some help.