What really would have helped in finals is.......

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Posted by Anthony S. at 04/10/2001 8:51 PM EST


Student on team #442, Knight Riders, from Lee High School and NASA/BOEING/MEVATEC.



From my observations, in the finals, teams couldn't seem to get passed that 700 point limit. But what would have saved that problem is a stretcher. Not many teams could use a stretcher successfully. My team was one of the only teams that could use the stretcher. In our last match we offered it to team 33 but they were too scared it would mess up and they would lose their number one possition. If we had, we would have had a 500 point match or something. We tried to advertise the stretcher before the finals but no one was really interested because no one saw it used much. If it were used, the 700 point mark would have been broken. If I'm not mistaken a robot can still funtion while on it, like put big balls on(correct me if I'm wrong) that would have made a big difference, does anyone else agree.

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Posted by Chris Orimoto at 04/10/2001 9:16 PM EST


Student on team #368, Kika Mana, from McKinley High School and Nasa Ames/Hawaiian Electric/Weinberg Foundation.


In Reply to: What really would have helped in finals is.......
Posted by Anthony S. on 04/10/2001 8:51 PM EST:



I COMPLETELY agree with you. Eveyone this year seemed to simply declare the stretcher as "too difficult" and "not worth the effort". However that is primarily because no one has seen it used effectively. I personally believe that, with a "decent puller" the stretcher is like an extra 10 points on the field. Yes, it is a difficult task, but there ARE robots out there that could do it.

I remember in San Jose, teams were very reluctant to using the stretcher. In fact there were only two robots that could pull it effectively (with us being one). We were able to pull the stretcher effectively in one match, but we also failed in another (due to a careless inspection error regarding drill clutches...) We tried to advertise the ability through a video at our pit, in which we were pulling humans on the stretcher over our practice bridge. Still, it was rarely allowed. All in all though, I think the stretcher was probably the most overlooked aspect of this year's game and should've been used more effectively.

Maybe if that rumor was true and FIRST did actually change it to 20 pts...then teams may have considered it a bit more...

Just my personal thoughts...

Chris, #368

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Posted by Andres Teene at 04/11/2001 9:45 AM EST


Engineer on team #159 from Poudre High School and LSi Logic.


In Reply to: Re: What really would have helped in finals is.......
Posted by Chris Orimoto on 04/10/2001 9:16 PM EST:



I was somewhat surprised not to see any use of the stretcher in Orlando. We had two matches in San Jose where the stretcher was successfully used, team 368 pulled it once and we did the other time. It wasn't difficult but did take some time.

Andres,
Team 159

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Posted by Deej- T190 at 04/11/2001 2:29 PM EST


Engineer on team #190, Gompeii, from Mass Academy and WPI.


In Reply to: stretcher bots
Posted by Andres Teene on 04/11/2001 9:45 AM EST:



I know that over here at WPI we were quite upset that the stretcher wasn't used in any of our matches. The second day of desiging/concept building, we asked the question as to what defined a "robot" in the eyes of FIRST. In update 2 they defined it and we proceeded to make a 18 pound stretcher bot that just about anyone could pull... And with this in mind, we could decide at the match that we wanted to use it and in less than 30 secs it would have been off the bot and on the stretcher. We would have loved to have used it just once, but now we'll just have to wait for off season events.....(Possibly IRI). when we do, we'll be sure to post pics with us on the other side of the field with our stretcher bot.

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Posted by Alan Federman at 04/11/2001 3:39 PM EST


Engineer on team #255, Odyssey, from Foothill HS, San Jose and NASA.


In Reply to: What really would have helped in finals is.......
Posted by Anthony S. on 04/10/2001 8:51 PM EST:



I am sorry - the stretcher is a suckers bet. why would you want to totally crowd the bridge for 30 to 40 seconds to score 30 points? Realistically you'd be better off sending two robots that could handle big balls which would give you 40 points. The stretcher might of wokred if it was smaller - it was just too unwieldy to be manipulated easily. One team (from Seattle?) built a robot designed to pass a strecher and a robot OVER the bar - but it was just too complicated and never worked. Now you could use the strecher if you had a busted robot or no big ball handlers - but if you can handle the strecher you probably can also balance at least 1 goal - and that is more valuable. - There is just no easy way to get past 700 with the stretcher.

Another way to go over 700 was to get black balls into the far goal. While I saw several robots that appeared to have black ball handling mechanisms - I didn't see anyone try this - nor did I see someonce trying to bring
the far goal over the bridge to be loaded up by human players. Many robots had the ability to move both a goal and a big ball simultaneously.

In my wild dreams the perfect robot could be able to hold two goals horizontally with 4 big balls ballanced on the bridge with three bots in the endzone in 1 minute
-
and you still have only 700 points!