Corner Climbing, The best strategy of 2013?

[Cash4587]

Originally Posted by joelg236

Look at all three Einstein winning teams. Pure cyclers (and 2 with ground pickups). 30 point climbing is nice, but it was not the most reliable (see 67, 1114, 254) strategy this year.

Correct, but then again the 1114 118 alliance in Galileo had the highest score out of any alliance at champs. If 1114 would have had the time to fix their climber before Galileo finals so it didn't stick, they most likely would have won champs. 1114 and 118 were cyclers as well they just had problems keeping them from moving onto Einstein.

[dcarr]

It depends how you define "best."

Most reliable? Hardest to defend? Highest scoring? Greatest crowd pleaser?

And are we talking about corner climbing as the best "overall" strategy or in comparison to other climbing methods?

[orangemoore]

I think it is the best because it is the most risky way to climb. If you slip off a rung you probably will flip over and on to the ground. It is also the least stable because you only can hold on to one rung at a time. so the body of you robot can twist.

[Bstep]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

I think it is the best because it is the most risky way to climb. If you slip off a rung you probably will flip over and on to the ground. It is also the least stable because you only can hold on to one rung at a time. so the body of you robot can twist.

Climbing on the corner gives you three points of contact. Two hooks on the corner rungs or gusset and the lower portion of the robot resting on the corner post. I saw many more robots fall from the face of the pyramid this year than from the corner. That being said, the higher number of robots falling from the face is probably because more teams tried climbing on the face than the corner.

[Chris is me]

In my opinion, if you played the 2013 game competitively and still think there was a single "best" strategy for all teams, you really don't understand the game. The game featured multiple robot archetypes that all could have won the Championship with the right execution, alliance partners, and luck. The best robot for your team depends on what you could accomplish as a team. If autonomous is your strong suit, seven disc floor pickup. Mechanical wizards run your team? Climber-cycler. Are you the Cheesy Poofs? Do it all.

I believe corner climbing had less value at the mid to upper tiers of play, but at the Einstein level of play (what we'll see at IRI) it can be absolutely essential. To put it simply - this game, at its most competitive, results in both alliances being out of discs before the thirty second mark. Any "extra" points you can get (climbing, floor pickup, autonomous advantage) as well as shot accuracy will determine the outcome of the match. A cycler with a thirty point climber is far more versatile and useful than a ten point cycler for this reason.

The difference maker at IRI is going to be either these extra points, or whichever alliance makes the fewest mistakes. It'll be fun to watch.

[Cash4587]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

In my opinion, if you played the 2013 game competitively and still think there was a single "best" strategy for all teams, you really don't understand the game. The game featured multiple robot archetypes that all could have won the Championship with the right execution, alliance partners, and luck. The best robot for your team depends on what you could accomplish as a team. If autonomous is your strong suit, seven disc floor pickup. Mechanical wizards run your team? Climber-cycler. Are you the Cheesy Poofs? Do it all.

I believe corner climbing had less value at the mid to upper tiers of play, but at the Einstein level of play (what we'll see at IRI) it can be absolutely essential. To put it simply - this game, at its most competitive, results in both alliances being out of discs before the thirty second mark. Any "extra" points you can get (climbing, floor pickup, autonomous advantage) as well as shot accuracy will determine the outcome of the match. A cycler with a thirty point climber is far more versatile and useful than a ten point cycler for this reason.

The difference maker at IRI is going to be either these extra points, or whichever alliance makes the fewest mistakes. It'll be fun to watch.

Sorry what I meant to emphasize was the best climbing strategy of 2013 not overall complete strategy. The only way that it could be considered for an elite strategy is if you had a shooter that could do 3-4 trips or a floor feed as well for auto mode. Sorry for the confusion.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Cash4587

Sorry what I meant to emphasize was the best climbing strategy of 2013 not overall complete strategy. The only way that it could be considered for an elite strategy is if you had a shooter that could do 3-4 trips or a floor feed as well for auto mode. Sorry for the confusion.

Ok, so then your question boils down to: Assume we're going to climb for 30. Do we want to do it inside or outside?

Strategically, it doesn't matter unless climbing inside for 30 is common. It wasn't this year, but were that to be the case, it would be more valuable to be a corner climber.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

Ok, so then your question boils down to: Assume we're going to climb for 30. Do we want to do it inside or outside?

Strategically, it doesn't matter unless climbing inside for 30 is common. It wasn't this year, but were that to be the case, it would be more valuable to be a corner climber.

Not true. Many climbers were painstakingly slow. It you're climbing on one of the faces you're in my way as I try and shoot and traverse the field. If you're only a 30 point climber, I'd much prefer it if you climb on the corner.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Not true. Many climbers were painstakingly slow. It you're climbing on one of the faces you're in my way as I try and shoot and traverse the field. If you're only a 30 point climber, I'd much prefer it if you climb on the corner.

True but when teams design their robots they need to remember to be flexible. During strategy sessions this year teams looked at us like we had 5 heads when told them we needed the back side of the pyramid to do our 30 point climb and a lot of teams would ask us if we could forgo our climb since it blocked their one and only shooting position. This of course didn't fly with us because we only needed that spot at 30-35 seconds which for most teams we encountered was only enough time for one more cycle. Yes face climbing does take up the most common shooting position this season, but in strategy teams need to be flexible because there is more than just shooting frisbees involved with the game. Shooting from the back of the pyramid is easy but my 15 second climber is also way easier from the back of the pyramid. I'm not going to take on one of the most complicated endgame strategies (corner climbing) so my partners can do another 9-12 point cycle in a match.

Now that we have had more practice we can do the front side which does give us another option but while climbing we will block shooting for a moment.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

True but when teams design their robots they need to remember to be flexible. During strategy sessions this year teams looked at us like we had 5 heads when told them we needed the back side of the pyramid to do our 30 point climb and a lot of teams would ask us if we could forgo our climb since it blocked their one and only shooting position. This of course didn't fly with us because we only needed that spot at 30-35 seconds which for most teams we encountered was only enough time for one more cycle. Yes face climbing does take up the most common shooting position this season, but in strategy teams need to be flexible because there is more than just shooting frisbees involved with the game. Shooting from the back of the pyramid is easy but my 15 second climber is also way easier from the back of the pyramid. I'm not going to take on one of the most complicated endgame strategies (corner climbing) so my partners can do another 9-12 point cycle in a match.

Now that we have had more practice we can do the front side which does give us another option but while climbing we will block shooting for a moment.

Agreed given your circumstance, but the thread is about the best climbing strategy. If I have two climbers to pick from that are exactly equal in every way (speed, alignment time ect.), I'll pick the corner climb. In theory it was the *best* climbing strategy, too bad it was so difficult. Funny how that works out.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Agreed given your circumstance, but the thread is about the best climbing strategy. If I have two climbers to pick from that are exactly equal in every way (speed, alignment time ect.), I'll pick the corner climb. In theory it was the *best* climbing strategy, too bad it was so difficult. Funny how that works out.

Yeah I see where you are coming from. For me I would say the best strategy is the most reliable/fastest one. Sounds weird but I can't say which area of the pyramid I would say is the best. Our team encountered a ton of corner climbers this season and only one climber that climbed up the face like us (254). Out of all of those partners the best we ever got was two of them made it to the 20 point level. Everyone else either got stuck on level 1, barely made level 2, or couldn't even get up.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Agreed given your circumstance, but the thread is about the best climbing strategy. If I have two climbers to pick from that are exactly equal in every way (speed, alignment time ect.), I'll pick the corner climb. In theory it was the *best* climbing strategy, too bad it was so difficult. Funny how that works out.

If you have two climbers, and you are NOT a 30 point climber it doesn't matter which one you'd pick. (scarcity of 30 point climbers meant picking one up on the back half the draft was RARE) To me it would come down to reliability. If a corner climber is less stable than a face climber (that's an if, I don't know) I'd take the face climber provided all other variables were equal. More stable means less chance of it falling and breaking.



Disclaimer - yeah yeah 1640 corner climber, back half draft...

[evanperryg]

There are also some other teams (like 71) who climbed from the inside cronder of the pyramid. I didn't get to see them at championships. But, at midwest, it took them only a few seconds to align and the climb took about 15-20 seconds.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

...we needed the back side of the pyramid to do our 30 point climb ... it blocked their one and only shooting position.

How does this work? With the climber I assume the it's just viewing angle that changes.

Also, for the shooters, it's surprising to me that they'd have only one shooting position on the whole field. Was it just that the drivers that weren't confident that they could line up right from elsewhere? It seems like you could always just drive closer to the 2 pt. goals unless it was confusing a vision-based aiming system.

Originally Posted by Gregor

Not true. Many climbers were painstakingly slow. It you're climbing on one of the faces you're in my way as I try and shoot and traverse the field. If you're only a 30 point climber, I'd much prefer it if you climb on the corner.

I guess this is true. I hadn't really though about this possibility since my team wasn't a cycler. By the way, I think that for most teams, if it takes long enough to climb that you're blocking things you probably shouldn't bother climbing.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

How does this work? With the climber I assume the it's just viewing angle that changes.

Also, for the shooters, it's surprising to me that they'd have only one shooting position on the whole field. Was it just that the drivers that weren't confident that they could line up right from elsewhere? It seems like you could always just drive closer to the 2 pt. goals unless it was confusing a vision-based aiming system.

It depends on your robot. Our original shooter was designed with a lead screw system and vision tracking so we could shoot from anywhere on the field (hypothetically) with a few primary positions around the pyramid/mid field. Point, shoot, go.

After our original design didn't work out at GSR Week 1 we redesigned our robot. One of the sacrifices we made was change our pivot from the lead screw system to a piston. This limited us to really 3 positions for the 3pt goal (Back middle, back left, and back right). The piston worked better towards our withholding allowance because once taken off it went into the event as a COTS item whereas our original lead screw design was about 5lbs of prefabricated materials. It was also extremely easy to integrate into our design and program.

This was something a lot of teams did by keeping it simple. Unfortunately many of them only tuned in their back of the pyramid shot with little to no practice on the corners. Its not too hard but it does require more care when lining up so you are aimed at the goal and depending on how you line up you sit further away from the pyramid so for many their back of the pyramid speed may not be the same for the corner.


For our climber it really does have implications of where we start climbing. Due to the design we have a window of about 2-4 inches horizontally on the bar we need in order to fit in the top once we climb. If we transition to climbing up the side of the pyramid, we are probably only good for 20 since it is extremely hard to determine the middle of the bar from across the field perpendicular to the robot. This is why we avoid the sides. The front of the pyramid isn't too hard for us really its a matter of wasted time. If we are shooting from the back of the pyramid, we can transition from climbing to shooting in 2 seconds while we could lose 5-10 seconds going to line up at the front of the pyramid. This is also why we don't like the side faces it would take way too long to line up on.

See this video and you can see what I mean with how easy it is to line up. Since this video, our transition time has been cut in half through some fancy programming and our climb is now faster by 5 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNNEld7uBJo