Stopping a Triple Balance

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by bam-bam

I found this year to be one of the more difficult years for scouting, because of the (somewhat) heightened difficulty with shooting, and the importance balancing with the bridges. In addition, the cooperation bridge was an freakin' huge wrench thrown into a lot of teams' plans.

Last year and 2010 was pretty easy in terms of functions required, as you only needed two defining actions in order to win the regional (For 2010, it was kicking and raising yourself up on the towers, while 2011 was being able to put tubes on the wall and having a fast minibot.)



If you want to be able to defense OR balance, you need high traction.

Well our team is using pneumatic tires, so this might work for us! This is cool...

[ThirteenOfTwo]

Originally Posted by bam-bam

If you want to be able to balance, you need high traction.

Oh? All of the effective balancing alliances that I've seen have consisted of two or three teams--one or two that lower the bridge and get on, and one that pushes them up to balance. Only this last robot needs to have high traction...

[kjmccarx]

Sure, the strategy with having one team push up another robot or two works great. But only if two or more of the robots have short drive bases.

Our team has a robot that has high traction wheels. Our bot can make it up the bridge, and push people up with no problem - but we are a long robot. Because we're long we can't triple balance with ease. In the quarter finals in at the Autodesk Oregon regional we were beat by the only alliance that could triple balance. In such a situation it would have been necessary to have two of our alliance partners balance, while one of us defends the opposing alliance from getting the triple balance.

Has anyone seen a strategy that could prevent even ONE of the robots from getting on the bridge to turn a 3x balance into a 2x balance? This would make the final outcome of the match come down to the number of baskets - rather than only the team that can make a 3x balance.

[ThirteenOfTwo]

Originally Posted by kjmccarx

Has anyone seen a strategy that could prevent even ONE of the robots from getting on the bridge to turn a 3x balance into a 2x balance? This would make the final outcome of the match come down to the number of baskets - rather than only the team that can make a 3x balance.

Well, you could do what 118's alliance did and ram the third robot across the field, but that rarely works out perfectly. If you played your cards right, you could make sure that you don't have to face a triple balancing alliance, or you could make one yourself.

I love Rebound Rumble if only because it penalizes teams who choose to use the most common drive train configuration in FRC.

[bam-bam]

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

Oh? All of the effective balancing alliances that I've seen have consisted of two or three teams--one or two that lower the bridge and get on, and one that pushes them up to balance.

You are correct.

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

Only this last robot needs to have high traction...

Not quite.

I'm assuming that you are talking about double/triple balancing (if it was singular, then yes, the robot does not necessarily need high traction). From what I've seen in balancing, it usually comes down to the robots on either end. If you're pushing up two robots with something like mecanum, then what will you do when the bridge tips over to the other side? Back up slowly and risk tipping over the robot on the other end of the bridge (which I've seen was extremely likely) and lose the triple balance?

[ThirteenOfTwo]

Originally Posted by bam-bam

Not quite.

I'm assuming that you are talking about double/triple balancing (if it was singular, then yes, the robot does not necessarily need high traction). From what I've seen in balancing, it usually comes down to the robots on either end. If you're pushing up two robots with something like mecanum, then what will you do when the bridge tips over to the other side? Back up slowly and risk tipping over the robot on the other end of the bridge (which I've seen was extremely likely) and lose the triple balance?

Many of the more effective triple balancers have robots with special attachments to help them balance. A mecanum, for instance, might have a "stinger" to stop the bridge from tilting too far in the other direction. Depending on the angle of the bridge I could definitely see a low-traction drive like a mecanum having the force to slowly push a higher-traction robot.

You're correct, though, that lower traction certainly would make balancing harder. Does anyone have video of a high-traction and low-traction combo trying to balance?

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

You're correct, though, that lower traction certainly would make balancing harder. Does anyone have video of a high-traction and low-traction combo trying to balance?

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2012roc_qm46 is 578 and us making the double balance look easy. (See the 2:00 minute mark). We look like mecanum, but we've got our traction wheels deployed for the bridge-work -- 578 is KoS so they're not exactly low traction, but they're geared fast with 8" wheels.

[ksafin]

I saw some team talking about ramming the opposing alliance's bridge, WHEN BALANCED, in order to throw it off.

Essentialls, incur the small penalty put prevent the opponent from gaining 40 pts.

Not in the spirit of gracious professionalism at all, but is it legal?

[qzrrbz]

Originally Posted by ksafin

I saw some team talking about ramming the opposing alliance's bridge, WHEN BALANCED, in order to throw it off.

Essentialls, incur the small penalty put prevent the opponent from gaining 40 pts.

Not in the spirit of gracious professionalism at all, but is it legal?

This is a foul you don't want to take. Don't even think about it!

[G25]

Robots may not contact or otherwise interfere with the opposing Alliance Bridge.
Violation: Technical-Foul. If the act of Balancing is interfered with, also a Red Card and the Bridge will be counted as Balanced with the maximum number of Robots possible for that Match.

[gyroscopeRaptor]

Originally Posted by ksafin

I saw some team talking about ramming the opposing alliance's bridge, WHEN BALANCED, in order to throw it off.

Essentialls, incur the small penalty put prevent the opponent from gaining 40 pts.

Not in the spirit of gracious professionalism at all, but is it legal?

This was done at Alamo inadvertently, but led to the largest score penalty in FIRST: 49 points.

[JakeD]

[G25]

Robots may not contact or otherwise interfere with the opposing Alliance Bridge.
Violation: Technical-Foul. If the act of Balancing is interfered with, also a Red Card and the Bridge will be counted as Balanced with the maximum number of Robots possible for that Match.

It would actually count for the maximum number of robots balanced, and give the technical-foul as well. Essentially once the alliance sees the red card they can all drive off the bridge and go back to scoring because they're guaranteed the maximum number of robots balanced even if they aren't even touching the bridge anymore.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

You're correct, though, that lower traction certainly would make balancing harder. Does anyone have video of a high-traction and low-traction combo trying to balance?

Many of our balances were with lower traction robots -- including those with mecanum wheels.

We ask that our partners put light pressure on our robot at all times. They won't push us and we can regulate their movement with our robot. It makes balancing very easy.

[bam-bam]

Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo

Many of the more effective triple balancers have robots with special attachments to help them balance. A mecanum, for instance, might have a "stinger" to stop the bridge from tilting too far in the other direction. Depending on the angle of the bridge I could definitely see a low-traction drive like a mecanum having the force to slowly push a higher-traction robot.

You're correct, though, that lower traction certainly would make balancing harder. Does anyone have video of a high-traction and low-traction combo trying to balance?

As Madison stated before, the action of mecanum robots are actually in reality the high traction robots moving back while the mecanum drives towards the high traction robots. Theoretically, mecanums can't push high traction robots, especially upward (The only exception to this rule I know of is 357 with their Jester Drive ).

I wouldn't pick mecanums unless you have two other high traction robots. I've seen instances where the mecanums can't even go up on the bridge.

[Zoughtbaj]

Originally Posted by bam-bam

As Madison stated before, the action of mecanum robots are actually in reality the high traction robots moving back while the mecanum drives towards the high traction robots. Theoretically, mecanums can't push high traction robots, especially upward (The only exception to this rule I know of is 357 with their Jester Drive ).

I wouldn't pick mecanums unless you have two other high traction robots. I've seen instances where the mecanums can't even go up on the bridge.

Likewise. At the Oregon Regional, just about every Mecanum I saw not only could not easily balance on the bridge, but had trouble even getting over the bridge. Interestingly, it would seem that CG would have a lot to do with that, but after what I saw, all the tipping and violence in the balancing process would simply cause the Mecanum wheels to slip. Traction wheels are definitely nescessary for a tripple balance, as well as small robots in your team. We are actually working on finding out how CG will effect the balancing process to see if we can integrate that into our scouting.

On a side note, one of our Alumni has deemed all of the bridges as "Catapults" and CP as "Catapult Points"

[Squillo]

Originally Posted by bam-bam

I wouldn't pick mecanums unless you have two other high traction robots. I've seen instances where the mecanums can't even go up on the bridge.

UNLESS your mecanum-drive robot has (1) "super-creep" (low geared, high torque - I think that's what they call it, I'm not a mechanical type) mode where it just crawls right up there, alone OR pushing another bot, and (2) "e-brake" gyro-based software which enables it to hold its position on the bridge using micro-adjustments (that's in lay terms and I might not be getting it right, but it's the general idea).

Our drivers can balance (and then turn 90 degrees to take up less bridge space), or double-balance (with our chassis-bot, 'cause that's all we have for a 2nd, but it weighs about 1/2 what our practice bot weighs, so that's another challenge - the chassis-bot has to hang off the end for the weight distribution to work out), pretty quickly. Haven't tried a triple only because we don't have 3 robots, but we can't wait to try it on that practice field in a couple of days.

Oh, man, I wish I had some video for y'all. Can't wait for this weekend.