Here's the problem with the minibot

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

I too fear that the MINIBOT concept will not die with Logomotion in a few weeks time. I'm afraid we will very likely see a return, probably again with the same political BS surrounding it (no VEX parts, etc).

For the record, I used a Vex Part on 816's mini-bots.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

I don't know that this constitutes a "near-complete" lack of data.

I do.

What questions can you answer from it that aren't insanely vague? What specific details can you give based on that data point? What were the issues? Who was involved? Who were the negative instigators; other members of the GDC or people who were being big meanies *to* the GDC? Why did it compel Dave to leave the GDC? What about Woodie -- same or different reason?

You can't answer any of these questions. What we have here is a near-complete lack of information, absolutely. If you think otherwise, I think you're a little too confident in your reading of that paragraph.

It's just as easy to interpret Dave's message as "we on the GDC take a lot of unfair crap, and I am unable to respond to all the crap we've taken in such a way that it would be both professional and honest, and yet personal conviction means that I can't go on NOT responding to all that crap if I stay on the GDC, so I'm outta here before things get ugly."

---------

So, yeah, I know what Dave said. I just don't think anything of any substance can be taken from it except a confirmation that they resigned from the GDC and an unwillingness to talk about it.

Thus, this speculation should be left right where it has been: nowhere.

[Madman503]

Personally I believe that the minibot is a perfect end game challenge. I don’t think that most teams took the proper amount of time designing the minibot deployment device, or understanding the rules associated with the minibot deployment for that matter.

The team I mentor, 3547, spent more time designing and building a minibot deplorer then any other aspect of the robot. I believe that we only spent $160 on our minibot development, not including the starter kit which we chose for our FIRST Choice parts. Our first minibot took about 2 hrs to build and for the first 2 competitions netted us around 600pts total; it wasn’t fast or special in any way except for being reliable. Once our first set of motors burned up, we replaced the inductor in the motor with wires and used them for testing all of our other minibot developments. As it stands now, our minibot deployment time (clime time included) is between 1.5 and 2 seconds. Also our minibot has deployed 32 out of 35 times. And of those 32 deployments our minibot scored 31 times, often in first place.

It seems like teams are busy trying to make the absolute fastest minibot, instead of the absolute fastest deployment with a respectable minibot. The race is really just about making sure that the other team is NOT first. If you consider that if an alliance has the first and last place minibot they will have scored 40 pts, while the other alliance with 2nd and 3rd place minibot will have scored 35pts. So if you notice, all you have to do is just make sure one of the minibot on your alliance comes in first place and you will always go away with more pts then your opposing alliance. I AM NOT SAYING THAT YOUR MINIBOT HAS TO BE THE FASTEST. I am simply pointing out that if the 3rd robot on your alliance interfered with one of the other minibot during the time that the bases are flashing yellow. That team, most likely will not be able to realign to the pole by the time all the other teams have launched there minibots.

My team successively accomplished this at the Michigan state competition 5 times, without penalties I might add. Often changing the minibot race outcome significantly. In some cases it changed the overall alliances race score from 40 to 35, with the opponent alliance winning. Into 50 to 25, helping our alliance receive an extra 25 pts without ever even touching our minibot pole.

In summary, care in the engineering challenge itself and strategy during the end game are what can really change the outcome of the game. Not that 25 millisecond faster than normal minibot climb time. I have yet to see a minibot race that couldn’t be judged visually. Deployment and driver reaction times are where the races are almost always won and lost.

[Wayne TenBrink]

One thing I liked about the whole minibot thing - especially in conjunction with the withholding allowance - is the way that we managed to cram an entire product evolution cycle into such a short period of time. In week 1 there was a huge diversity of designs & performance. By CMP, most will conform to a few basic types and perform within a few tenths of a second of each other. This may not be what we wanted to see, but its the way the world works. The crowd copies success and that forces the leaders to go the next step. Eventually everything homogenizes and gets boring. It was a fun and educational challenge to live through, but I certainly hope they move on to something else next year.

[Bill_B]

If the GDC intended that the minibot endgame should promote and celebrate the existence of FTC teams, it failed to do that. An essentially watered-down requirement to use FTC (Tetrix) parts only vexed (pun intended) FRC teams about the challenge of LogoMotion's endgame without appreciable FTC involvement. Perhaps the only way to insure FTC involvement would have been to require that the minibot be built by an existing FTC team. It doesn't take much imagination to believe that the hue and cry among FRC-dom would have been loud and long. "We don't have a FTC team in our area!" To which the GDC should have replied "That, my dear FRC, is the point. Go make one."

This is not to say that the current rules did not inspire a great deal of innovation for the minibots and deployment mechanisms. A great deal of the "unfairness" sting could have been mollified by reducing the seemingly immense scoring differential for minibots. So some teams would have been able to abandon mini-bot attempts at the expense of, say, a mid-height tube logo or two by concentrating on making their tube game better.

We will probably never know what the GDC was thinking about minibots. Complicating the FTC picture is the fact that most of the existing FTC teams were already in a build/compete season. They would have been hard-pressed to do design and build work for a FRC team or two in that time period. As good as it might have been for FIRST and for collaboration experience in both FRC and FTC, an effective cross-program promotional strategy seems to be an elusive goal.

Now my FLL team, on the other hand, designed and built a pole-climbing robot of FLL-legal parts in two or three meetings. They got the chance to show their robot to the Hartford Regional audience, thanks to the CT FIRST volunteers, Mike Gentry in particular. I think FIRST missed a good to great opportunity for cross-program promotion, not that FLL needs much of that.

[PayneTrain]

Not to mention FTC teams are more restricted in their rules than we were. Here is a list of things on the most successful minibots that come in a Tetrix kit:

2 Tetrix Motors (with detached gearboxes)
1 Battery
1 or 2 switches
And they use wiring, so I'll include that.

What we made:
3 pieces of beautifully cut channel aluminum
Custom Axles with surgical tubing
Anderson PowerPole Connectors

Not typical FTC materials, but we used them because we could. The point of the minibot was never explicitly stated, so its purpose may have died before ship day, or even before the infamous Team Updates.

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

I like the idea that Stephen proposed about a flat rate challenge. You made it, you get the points. Last year, you hang, you get the points. Two years ago, scoring a supercell is 15 points no matter when you scored it. Three years ago the big ball on the overpass score the bonus points no matter when you scored it. I don't think it is any less exciting. It eliminates all the problems with deploying too early, crossing the plane etc.

For those who have been around longer, were there a game in past years with end game that gives more points to the alliance that did it first?

It seems to go against FIRST values. We should celebrate when a robot can do a certain task. We don't build battlebots. We don't try to beat the other guy directly. We should try to use the robot we designed to score as many points as possible and use strategy as an alliance to win.

07 there was a 2 tier end game: pts for 6" off the ground and pts for 12"
06 there were points (i believe it was 30) for getting on top of a tall platform
05 i forget...
04 there were 50 points for hanging from a bar
03 there were points for being the king of the hill.

i believe 07 was the only tiered one, but your opponents scoring didnt influence your potential end game bonus. And the task of lifting 2 of your teammates up a foot proved to be a pretty difficult challenge. Easier that lifting a teammate in '10 though.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by lineskier

07 there was a 2 tier end game: pts for 6" off the ground and pts for 12"
06 there were points (i believe it was 30) for getting on top of a tall platform
05 i forget...
04 there were 50 points for hanging from a bar
03 there were points for being the king of the hill.

i believe 07 was the only tiered one, but your opponents scoring didnt influence your potential end game bonus. And the task of lifting 2 of your teammates up a foot proved to be a pretty difficult challenge. Easier that lifting a teammate in '10 though.

'06 was 5-10-25 for robot(s) on the platform

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by lineskier

07 there was a 2 tier end game: pts for 6" off the ground and pts for 12"
06 there were points (i believe it was 30) for getting on top of a tall platform
05 i forget...
04 there were 50 points for hanging from a bar
03 there were points for being the king of the hill.

i believe 07 was the only tiered one, but your opponents scoring didnt influence your potential end game bonus. And the task of lifting 2 of your teammates up a foot proved to be a pretty difficult challenge. Easier that lifting a teammate in '10 though.

My question was that was there another year that the first robot to do something get more points?

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

My question was that was there another year that the first robot to do something get more points?

Both '03 and '04 offered advantages for the first team up in that they could potentially defend the position. However, they did not get more points than other teams that made it up.

[pfreivald]

I like strategic rewards more than explicit point awards, though both certainly have their place.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Anyone who has made or seen a sub 1.5 second Mini-bot, heck even a sub 2.5 second Mini-bot knows that they're EXTREMELY far from being FTC robots, or even Tetrix Robots.

Exception to the rule.

[dudefise]

Originally Posted by thefro526

My biggest problem with the Mini-bot is that it was created in an attempt to spur the growth of Tetrix.

I think thats absolutely right. They are trying to establish Tetrix by having FRC teams buy their parts and further FTC.... it seems like its heavily political, by disallowing vex parts and *only* allowing ftc motors...

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by dudefise

I think thats absolutely right. They are trying to establish Tetrix by having FRC teams buy their parts and further FTC.... it seems like its heavily political, by disallowing vex parts and *only* allowing ftc motors...

It does seem a little political, but this discussion has been beat to death in other threads, so I won't get into it.

The only thing they showed us is how junky the tetrix motors are. I like the end game challenge, but if they're going to restrict parts so much, at least restrict us to that are of half decent quality.