My Hopper/Dumper Idea

[Marc S.]

This would be a great strategy, and you'd pretty much guarantee doing well at competitions. You'll also impress judges considering how hard it is to get to the 3rd level of the pyramid.

[DjMaddius]

Originally Posted by Marc S.

This would be a great strategy, and you'd pretty much guarantee doing well at competitions. You'll also impress judges considering how hard it is to get to the 3rd level of the pyramid.

I agree that we'll do fairly well if we can climb! Just, have to still figure that out. All we know right now is we want to go up the corners so we have 3 points of contact with the pyramid at all times ridding us of swinging as well as making it easy to go in sequential order.

Originally Posted by TheAthlete

The Robot in 3 days videos are awesome! I'm glad someone is doing the rapid prototyping early on...hopefully it will give us an idea sometime this week what works regarding the shooter. We had issues last year prototyping wayyyyy too long.
And for some teams (like ours and it sounds like yours), there are limits to how much you can do in 6 weeks. Some teams out there will get the shooting and climbing to level three down, but for us we have to decide what combination to go with in order to be successful. The climbing and dumping is an option for us, along with a good shooter and climbing level one. With the space decrease this year it would be a huge design problem to get both done.

Yea, I love what they're doing, check out their live stream!
http://www.robotin3days.com/livestream/

[Ayukura]

This is an excellent strategy; Our team had the same idea. However, I fear that there will be many teams with the same strategy, (great minds think alike!), so much that you'll see a few robots on the playing field just sitting on the tower for half the match. Think about it: The match is 2 minutes and 15 seconds long. You guaranteed your team 50 points, and if a robot on the opposing team can accurately score frisbees into the 3pt goal, they have to score 16 frisbees in the 3pt goal. You can hold up to 4 frisbees. So, they'd have to be able to score 1 frisbee in the 3pt goal per 8 seconds. A robot that can shoot at an accurate and massive speed can outclass a climbing robot, and if it has a climbing mechanism in it as well...
I would suggest at least having it play able to play defense against really offensive robots before going up the pyramid. (Although sitting back and drinking ice tea while looking at your beautiful robot is also enjoyable) It's definitely really impressive, and, as Marc says, you're guaranteed to do well.
A robot in 3 days... I can't imagine it.

[DjMaddius]

Well, once we determine how long it takes to climb we plan to play the 1 ptn hole as long as possible to gain points. We're using super shifters with a 6 wheel drive to ensure our ability to push our way around the field. So we will score 56 for sure, 30 for climbing, 20 for 4 in the top, 6 for 3 in auton. Then beyond that I'm thinking maybe 8 more. Which is two runs of four. If we get good at running single points we can maybe double that. Making a total of 72 points all on our own. We may be fighting for time to feed our robot vs other teams on our alliance though. But with both sides being able to deliver I'm not sure. This years game is a LOT of fun. I like it a lot more than previous years games I've played.

EDIT::
Maybe I just like it because I feel confident in what we are doing this year but eh, just a gut feeling!

[moogboy]

Originally Posted by DjMaddius

Well, once we determine how long it takes to climb we plan to play the 1 ptn hole as long as possible to gain points.

My team had discussions about the 1 pt. goal and one question came up and stopped us dead in our tracks: How valuable is a robot that can score 1 pt. per frisbee to teams that can score three's and two's all day, especially in light of the limited number of frisbees on the field? Assuming that your alliance partners are killer shooters, they would be able to make up for a bunch of 1 pointers pretty quickly. Basically we figured that being able to score 1's would be fine and all but may not be the best thing in terms of alliance selection.

I do like the climb to level three and dump idea though. It's a great idea actually and one I wish my team had spent more time on.

[DjMaddius]

Originally Posted by moogboy

My team had discussions about the 1 pt. goal and one question came up and stopped us dead in our tracks: How valuable is a robot that can score 1 pt. per frisbee to teams that can score three's and two's all day, especially in light of the limited number of frisbees on the field? Assuming that your alliance partners are killer shooters, they would be able to make up for a bunch of 1 pointers pretty quickly. Basically we figured that being able to score 1's would be fine and all but may not be the best thing in terms of alliance selection.

I do like the climb to level three and dump idea though. It's a great idea actually and one I wish my team had spent more time on.

Well I figured scoring 1ptns is better than just sitting on the pyramid the whole match since we aren't attempting to actually shoot the frisbees right now, and just dump them. However we could end up going with more of a shooter, this was just an idea we've had.

[Ayukura]

Originally Posted by DjMaddius

Well, once we determine how long it takes to climb we plan to play the 1 ptn hole as long as possible to gain points. We're using super shifters with a 6 wheel drive to ensure our ability to push our way around the field. So we will score 56 for sure, 30 for climbing, 20 for 4 in the top, 6 for 3 in auton. Then beyond that I'm thinking maybe 8 more. Which is two runs of four. If we get good at running single points we can maybe double that. Making a total of 72 points all on our own. We may be fighting for time to feed our robot vs other teams on our alliance though. But with both sides being able to deliver I'm not sure. This years game is a LOT of fun. I like it a lot more than previous years games I've played.

EDIT::
Maybe I just like it because I feel confident in what we are doing this year but eh, just a gut feeling!

It certainly is a great idea--I'm not putting it down. But, if you have some shooters on your team that can consistently do the 3pt/2pt goal, why not play a bit of defense and deny the opposing team's killer shooter's points? As moogboy said, there is only a limited number of frisbees on the playing field. If you have two other robots who are insane shooters and you run out of frisbees on the field, the frisbees you had put in the 1pt goal could have potentially be put in the 2pt/3pt goal by your alliance member. Just a thought.

[DjMaddius]

Originally Posted by Ayukura

It certainly is a great idea--I'm not putting it down. But, if you have some shooters on your team that can consistently do the 3pt/2pt goal, why not play a bit of defense and deny the opposing team's killer shooter's points? As moogboy said, there is only a limited number of frisbees on the playing field. If you have two other robots who are insane shooters and you run out of frisbees on the field, the frisbees you had put in the 1pt goal could have potentially be put in the 2pt/3pt goal by your alliance member. Just a thought.

Yea, I feel you. With out drive we definitely can play defensive. Just have to be careful about hitting the opponents when they are getting on their pyramid and such. Could cost quite a bit of points.

[Ayukura]

Originally Posted by DjMaddius

Yea, I feel you. With out drive we definitely can play defensive. Just have to be careful about hitting the opponents when they are getting on their pyramid and such. Could cost quite a bit of points.

Technical fouls certainly can change the tides in a match. If you go ahead and build a defensive bot, be sure to make your drivers' study those penalties!

[DjMaddius]

Originally Posted by Ayukura

Technical fouls certainly can change the tides in a match. If you go ahead and build a defensive bot, be sure to make your drivers' study those penalties!

I've been one of the drivers every year since I've started and heck yea. Penalties always manage to change the pace of the game and may very well decide the winner several times over. I always do a complete read of the rule book and a double of everything I'm involved in such as programming, controls, and driving.

[Ayukura]

Originally Posted by DjMaddius

I've been one of the drivers every year since I've started and heck yea. Penalties always manage to change the pace of the game and may very well decide the winner several times over. I always do a complete read of the rule book and a double of everything I'm involved in such as programming, controls, and driving.

Yeah, I was a driver at our last competition for Rebound Rumble. (CalGames). We lost one of our matches simply because we got a foul for touching their bridge, because our alliance robot bumped into us on accident... Oops!

[G Fawkes]

There may be a rule clarification that impacts this strategy. The manual states that the human players can begin throwing discs when there is 30 seconds left(G35). The animation states that near the end of the match the human players begin throwing the discs over the wall and the robots head to the pyramids to begin their climb.

[DjMaddius]

Originally Posted by G Fawkes

There may be a rule clarification that impacts this strategy. The manual states that the human players can begin throwing discs when there is 30 seconds left(G35). The animation states that near the end of the match the human players begin throwing the discs over the wall and the robots head to the pyramids to begin their climb.

Ah, well it isn't specified as the 'end game' in the manual. Only as climbing, so I hope they don't change it to the last 30 seconds. It will be VERY difficult to get the level 3 in that time I believe.

[MrRiedemanJACC]

I think your idea is a great one. Here in Michigan you have to be good at something and very good at it to get picked for an alliance. I am a mentor on team 2611 and we were at Wayne State with you guys last year. Teams our size have a tough time at it because if we try to do to much we won't be very good at anything. And then we get left behind. We are considering the same strategy that you mentioned in your first post. Get the 50 points and do it consistently...

[mikegrundvig]

After last year's competitions, I have serious doubts about teams making tons of consistent 3 point shots. If your robot can climb quickly up and down (call it 20 seconds each way for instance) as well as dump into the pyramid top bin and the lowest scoring hole it could look something like this:

Dump two discs in the lowest hole during autonomous, go back and reload with 4 colored discs. Climb the pyramid and dump those discs. Climb back down and hand reload with 4 white discs. Drive to the other side, dump those white discs. Drive back and hand reload the last two colored discs and climb the pyramid and dump them. Match ends. That adds up like this:

6 points (auto from behind the line)
20 points (4 colored)
4 points (4 white)
10 points (2 colored)
30 points (pyramid at the end)

That's a total of 70 points and seems like a reasonable amount of time for each task assuming you have a good climbing mechanism. Even if you have to let other robots in your alliance handle the colored discs, making three runs down field for 12 pts + the 30 pt climb and the 6 pt auto makes for 48 points scored by a single robot.

This would make for a very solid robot that had only three subsystems - drive, dump, and climb. No need to pick discs from the ground and flip them over if needed. No need to have a power-hungry and physically large shooter. In fact, this design could make for a quite small and light robot; which in turn makes climbing easier.

Anyways, just food for thought.

-Mike