Defending Stacks?

[Skip 2 my Bartz]

Has anyone put any thought into how easy it is to knock over stacks? No matter how you stack them, it seems to us that they are pretty unstable. Sure, you could use your robot to defend them, assuming it has enough torque not to get itself pushed into the stack, but that seems pretty complicated and like a waste of a robot.
Anyway, any ideas?

[srjjs]

Any "king of the hill" robot could conceivably use the same mechanism to defend a tall stack effectively if it would raise their score by more than 25 points.

[bigqueue]

Originally posted by srjjs
Any "king of the hill" robot could conceivably use the same mechanism to defend a tall stack effectively if it would raise their score by more than 25 points.

You are correct, to a point. I say that because I do think that some bots will be designed with mechanisms specically designed for stack knocking.....I'm thinking about arms or appendeges that will reach over or around low bots....so it might not just be a matter of "planting yourself"....though that certainly will take care of a majority of the advances.

-Quentin

[SuperJake]

Originally posted by bigqueue
....so it might not just be a matter of "planting yourself"....

As I'm sure all of you are aware, just "planting" doesn't work all the time. Don't believe me? Remember this:



The times we planted, it worked great... but when someone hit us just right, that happened. And to much excitement, it happened often.

[illumanat'i]

its all part of stratagy, making the game that much harder.... if a bot has a blocking arm, push it around and hope they don't have a good drive train.... when to defend a stack and when to make another or go to the top of the ramp is all up to you alliance

[Tyler]

A king of the hill robot would want to be low so it would have a low point of gravity, which would make it more secure on the hill. This would make it very easy to just take any well built arm which many teams are going to have and just knock the stack over.

[Alex Forest]

As I'm sure all of you are aware, just "planting" doesn't work all the time.

Does this mean you arent planting this year? no king of the hill? *gasp*

[hixofthehood]

The way I see it, an attacking robot has four direct options.

A. Circumvent the defender and push the stack over.
B. Push the defending robot into the stack, knocking the stack over.
C. Use a mechanism to reach over or around the defending robot and push the stack from a different angle
D. Force the defending robot into the stack with very little time left. When the clock strikes 0:00 and the defending robot is touching it, that stack is worth 0.00.

It seems like defending against a strong robot (especially one built for this purpose) is going to be next to impossible.

[Mike Norton]

just think a low riding robot with it center of gravity is only about 2 " off the ground with strong arms and a strong track system.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=verbose


now think about the force that a robot can push with the van door motor
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=verbose


put it all together and get a robot that wants to take down stacks as fast as you can put them up, fast enough to run back to the hill for more points.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=verbose

the king of the hill robot is not going to want to be at the very top. they are going to hang out on the top of the ramp. It is very hard for a robot to push another robot over the top without real good power. because not only does the robot have to push 130 lb of robot but he has to deal with the gravity part and good traction of the robot.

So about defending a stack. get a 130lb robot racing down the ramp at full power with a 2" center of gravity with load of traction. what do you see happing to the robot trying to defend the stack?

I see parts flying and this is what FIRST is going to be seeing this year. Great for TV.