[MCC] Minimum Competitive Concept 2005

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

This is a difficult one.....

So, to summarize:
A robot capable of knocking off the corner tetras, human loading, and scoring on short tetra stacks with some sort of stabilizing manipulator. Obviously the drive-base should be reliable, easy to control, and reasonably fast. And the driver should avoid penalties!!

I agree. A MCC robot would typically be a third member of an alliance. The strategy for our championship alliance was to only focus on scoring on half the field. We split that half amongst our three alliance partners. With our third partner (503) scoring on the rear corner and middle goals. 503 wasn't really an MCC machine that year, since we had them as the 4th best machine in the division and picked them with the 9th pick (non-serpentine draft).

But, they essentially performed MCC type tasks in the elims. Reliable drive base, human load, passive manipilator, capable of scoring on shorter goals.

Maybe my expectations of a MCC type machine are a little high. But, with the penalty rules the way they were...there wasn't much else you could do in this game if you weren't scoring to help your alliance.

Good topic. Minimum level for this game was probably a little higher than any of the games since then.

[BJC]

Were wedges still legal in 2005?

If so, I vote for box on wheels and flip down wedges..

Regards, Bryan

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by BJC

Were wedges still legal in 2005?

If so, I vote for box on wheels and flip down wedges..

Regards, Bryan

They were only allowed in a passive manner; you couldn't intentionally tip someone with them. However, if you were placing a tetra going about your business and someone rammed you and tipped themselves, it's their fault.

[BJC]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

They were only allowed in a passive manner; you couldn't intentionally tip someone with them. However, if you were placing a tetra going about your business and someone rammed you and tipped themselves, it's their fault.

Then I change my vote to Trapizoid with wheels.

Even without being able to activly tip people, I would pick one of these around the back half of the draft over most tetra-placing robots that would still around to be a third pick.

[bduddy]

Our (840's) robot that year was very simple and ended up being quite effective...

http://art.cim3.org/2004-2005_Files/...20%5BHQ%5D.JPG
http://art.cim3.org/2004-2005_Files/...ns/gripper.jpg

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BJC

Were wedges still legal in 2005?

If so, I vote for box on wheels and flip down wedges..

Legal, yes. Used to tip other robots over, red card. Which is, I think, why wedges have been illegal since 2006. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/21301 shows a tie match in Archimedes QFs; this was the only 0-0 eliminations match (and might still be). This particular one was caused by red cards for tipping, as I understand it. The offenders both either carried wedges or had them built into their robot.

I do remember at least one Box-on-Wheels with a flip-down wedge on one end. No eliminations for it, and I seem to recall a number of penalties.

330 used theirs to keep other robots from interfering with scoring. Usually it worked. Then there was the one robot that had to be dealt with in another way... by lifting the tetra that we were picking up (one of ours, of course) and they had their wheel in. They started coming along with it, we put it down, and they didn't bother us like that again.

[Brandon Holley]

I loved our 2005 drive base, we went about our business without any issue


From a manipulator standpoint, the 217/229 giant cross is as simple and reliable as it got, IMO (or another post with stabilizer bar, just loved how big 217s was).

I LOVED how 179 played the game in 2005. Extremely fast, well driven, "roundish" style drive base which made it hard to get in their way. They focused on the lower goals, but could get a tetra on the center if they needed to. The "rake" style manipulator worked awesomely as it helped minimize the accuracy required by the driver to pick up a tetra. Loved that robot, and it was stupid simple.

-Brando

[Conor Ryan]

Ahhh 2005, what a great year. Probably my favorite in terms of design, I just had a lot of fun with it. In many ways it was a very even playing field.

Minimally Competitive Robots were used quite frequently in competitions, however I recall from many of the champions that strategy didn't quite pan out. However, this was a very weird era, it was the first year of a really good kit drive train. Prior to 2005, the KOP was a lot worse, the idea of having a reliable drivetrain was not feasible to many teams.

What 2005 brought though was the first ever reliable KOP drivetrain that was designed with FRC in mind. It wasn't until that happened that teams were able to focus on manipulator designs extensively.

So I think the explanation is it was kind of stuck from an old era, and a possibly a test by the GDC to see if it would make the field more competitive overall.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

What 2005 brought though was the first ever reliable KOP drivetrain that was designed with FRC in mind. It wasn't until that happened that teams were able to focus on manipulator designs extensively.

So I think the explanation is it was kind of stuck from an old era, and a possibly a test by the GDC to see if it would make the field more competitive overall.

Thats a good point. The first year of 3 team alliances and the first kit bot probably led to a lot of angst for the GDC that year.

THIS IS WHY WE TRY NEW THINGS

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by IKE

I am bringing this one up as it hase beena few years since we had a "unique" playing piece. Other than its weight, I felt the Tetra was an excellent playing piece.

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

What 2005 brought though was the first ever reliable KOP drivetrain that was designed with FRC in mind. It wasn't until that happened that teams were able to focus on manipulator designs extensively.

So I think the explanation is it was kind of stuck from an old era, and a possibly a test by the GDC to see if it would make the field more competitive overall.

Originally Posted by Gregor

Thats a good point. The first year of 3 team alliances and the first kit bot probably led to a lot of angst for the GDC that year.

THIS IS WHY WE TRY NEW THINGS

Also, interesting note, this might explain why we had such a unique game piece.... GDC was trying to encourage innovative manipulators.

[Taylor]

Box on wheels with zip ties touching the ground.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Box on wheels with zip ties touching the ground.

I forgot about the zipties to touch the "triangle of doom". We installed paint brushes.

So as many have realized I picked this year as it was not an easy year to build a super simple robot. That being said, the next level up was not actually that complex, and could be incredily effective. I am very glad that 330 got the early shout out as they are a team that often builds "elegant" designs that are are amazingly effective.

We on 33 started that year with a different MCC (Most Complicated Contraption). It was a double jointed arm, Swerve drive, had the ability to store a bonus tetra, and a super gripper that had like 3 motions... The first event did not go well. We spent eliminations rebuilding the drive train to a 4x4 and benchmarking good manipulators.

While the robot may not be a good MCC, the end effectors that were effective that year were super simple in appearance, but often highly optimized.
Stick and a string, pitch fork, cross with a ball on the end.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Box on wheels with zip ties touching the ground.

There was really no place for that robot in 2005. It would have been almost completely worthless. Due to how hard it was to play effective defense and how big the risk was for getting penalized, defensive bots were almost useless.

[Zflash]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/38155?

Above is FRC Team 1319's submission for the 2005 year. This was our second year as a team. We built a simpe 6WD chassis that had two arms for picking up Tetras front or back. The end manipulator was a simple shape made from PVC and PVC fittings tha evolved into different ones until we found what worked best. The arms did not telescope to go higher however because we had two arms we could cap quickly or deliver to a partner that wanted to cap as well. We also had a PVC roller painted with bright pink stripes that rolled on the ground and gave a clear indicator that we were legal to be taking a tetra from the human player. Although it is not our most successfull robot by award status it performed the challenge well and so far is the simplest we have built.

[funstuff]

2005 had a great game! It was great to play with an unusual field piece.

If I recall correctly, there were two teams that capped the side goals in autonomous, with 66 definitely being one of the two. One team had an award out for the first team that capped the center goal in autonomous - it had the largest point value that year. That never happened in competition that year.



Above is a picture of the closest anyone ever got to that goal (Lone Star Regional - Team 624). I can't seem to find the video, but it was placed in the position shown and the robot backed off during the 15 seconds. However, it didn't count as the tetra was caught on a zip-tie that held the vision panels on. Using the vision system at championships became particularly impractical due to the lighting of the Georgia Dome that tended to cast shadows everywhere.

624 had a good minimal design that year - 1 arm that rotated at the "shoulder" and was powered through a beast of a 24" long piston (with variable control), plus a 6WD drive train. The hand folded up to start the competition, but unfolded for the entire match. This was definitely one of my favorite games to design for.



As for fantastic design concepts, 118 put out a relatively simple design (for them). Swerve drive + rotating elevator turret + dual arms with 1 controlled degree of motion each once the arms unfolded (piston that extended a PVC tube from the "elbows" of the arms). Dual arms allowed them something many teams did not consider - moving more than one piece at a time. Added to a swerve drive and rotating turret, they dominated. They only lost one qualifying match at LSR that year, and it was one in which they were facing a strong alliance with 2 no-show/dead partners. They went on to have a strong showing in Atlanta.


(Chainzilla: arms unfolded, pistons retracted)