Team 1658 2+ stack practice runs, robot overview

[Georges]

Saw this robot while we practiced at the Cyborg Cat's field several weeks back.

Glad to see you fixed the issue with the totes falling out! Very impressive machine!

[MrBasse]

Have you tried dropping two totes before lifting the full stack? It seems like your robot is low enough that you could shave a few seconds off by dropping the first tote in and centering it, then dropping another on top of the first, and then picking up the two. It would keep your human player from waiting while your lift cycles. It might only be a few seconds here and there, but it could be enough to finish that third stack.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Really solid robot, if you guys can have even half that performance you'll be very strong at St. Louis next week. Good luck!

[sanelss]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Really solid robot, if you guys can have even half that performance you'll be very strong at St. Louis next week. Good luck!

our goal is to go for 2 full stacks(noodle+container+6totes) every round. The partial third stack won't be worth the haste or risk of knocking over the other stacks, we're mostly doing it just to see what the robot can do under theoretical best conditions and may attempt it in finals if it's that close of a game. We are currently able to do this consistently and have about 25-35s remaining after scoring the 2nd stack, even if the 2nd container is knocked over. The only thing that would prevent us from achieving this goal is catastrophic robot failure or major driver error(it would almost have to be intentional on their part). However from all the use and abuse it's been through so far, that doesn't appear to be a concern. I really don't know at this point what would prevent us from being able to perform as we expect, but this is FRC and if there's one thing i've learned over all these years is that things are never as expected and murphy will get you every time!

[sanelss]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

Have you tried dropping two totes before lifting the full stack? It seems like your robot is low enough that you could shave a few seconds off by dropping the first tote in and centering it, then dropping another on top of the first, and then picking up the two. It would keep your human player from waiting while your lift cycles. It might only be a few seconds here and there, but it could be enough to finish that third stack.

We have, if the robot is perfectly aligned to the human station than this works without a hitch, but if it's off the 2nd tote won't properly align itself and since we can't adjust it, there is potential for it to be very unstable making it rather easy to lose the stack. Hence why we avoid doing it.

Our current best run is 2x 6 totes and a third stack of 5 totes. So under ideal conditions and doing this trick we may be should be able to achieve 3 full stacks. But we're not really going for that anyway, we just want to make sure we can get 2 full stacks every run and we should be good.

[MrBasse]

Originally Posted by sanelss

We have, if the robot is perfectly aligned to the human station than this works without a hitch, but if it's off the 2nd tote won't properly align itself and since we can't adjust it, there is potential for it to be very unstable making it rather easy to lose the stack. Hence why we avoid doing it.

Our current best run is 2x 6 totes and a third stack of 5 totes. So under ideal conditions and doing this trick we may be should be able to achieve 3 full stacks. But we're not really going for that anyway, we just want to make sure we can get 2 full stacks every run and we should be good.

It looks great, definitely wouldn't worry too much about that extra tote or two. I'm just always looking for that way to shave a second off here or there to get more done. Good luck this season!

[sanelss]

Originally Posted by Georges

Saw this robot while we practiced at the Cyborg Cat's field several weeks back.

Glad to see you fixed the issue with the totes falling out! Very impressive machine!

ye we made several changes which makes it pretty much fool proof scoring now. no more issues with losing a stack! well... unless the driver decelerates too fast, we will lose the can but the stack will still stay inside at least =p