1114 the Statistical Outlier

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by GrifBot

Which is why one cannot simply win on their own. It takes coordination with alliance members.

if you look at the scores for GTCR 1114 didn't need partners to win it.

Powerhouse teams pick strategies that allow them to not have to rely on their alliance partners because Quals can be a total crap shoot of who you get teamed up with. Being able to play the game by yourself is key to seeding high and then being able to pick other teams that play the game the way you want to play it.

1114 can and will play with other teams when necessary. It just wasn't (and might not be until Champs) at GTCR last weekend.

As someone said earlier if you need to justify your teams decision to build a robot that requires team work to perform by arguing against those who don't more power too you. Your challenge ins't 1114 its the scheduling deity to give you a qual schedule that pairs you with teams that compliment you so you can hope to score more than 140 points a match, to seed higher than the 1114's and hope they want you to pick them.

[apb2390]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

...Teams who aren't powerhouses had to choose between hoping they get to pick a perfect alliance of specialists, ...

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. An anecdotal bit of support for this statement - 1684 designed a robot capable of capping stacks; any size, we can get a container on them. However, at our first event, we never capped anything above two totes. Part of this problem was drivetrain/field related (deviations in field flatness and an unforgiving drivebase creating traction issues and poor handling - this also hindered our two-bin auto grab), but bigger was the issue that there were no stacks available to cap. Our QA was unfortunately low as a result, and our showing wasn't impressive.

Specialization seems not nearly as viable this year as in previous games, given the very well-matched alliance a specialist needs. The ROI on successfully doing everything is massive, and the ROI for successfully doing one thing very well is not very high. The possible exception to this is a step container grabber, which may turn out to be a viable niche position. Or maybe it won't - maybe the powerhouse teams can fill that role as well. I can envision an alliance with two high-speed step container grabbers and one high-scoring auto bot. We'll see how it pans out over the next few weeks.

[Gdeaver]

I predict that the winning alliances at worlds will have sub 1 second Recycle Can grab autonomous team members. Will the super can grabber become the coveted second pick or will they remain the 3rd pick. The platform RC's are the key in the coming weeks. Similar to the sub second mini-bots.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

I predict that the winning alliances at worlds will have sub 1 second Recycle Can grab autonomous team members. Will the super can grabber become the coveted second pick or will they remain the 3rd pick. The platform RC's are the key in the coming weeks. Similar to the sub second mini-bots.

Or it'll just be an Alliance Captain/1st Pick powerhouse that can also do capped 6-stacks and as a Noodle Jesus. There are certainly enough powerhouses attempting to do so, and it's entirely feasible. They have no reason to leave such a determining factor to chance/someone else when they can do it themselves. ...Similar to the sub-second minibots they fielded. It's actually worse this year, because potentially you just need one 3-4 can grabber rather than 2 minibot racers.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Siri

Or it'll just be an Alliance Captain/1st Pick powerhouse that can also do capped 6-stacks and as a Noodle Jesus. There are certainly enough powerhouses attempting to do so, and it's entirely feasible. They have no reason to leave such a determining factor to chance/someone else when they can do it themselves. ...Similar to the sub-second minibots they fielded. It's actually worse this year, because potentially you just need one 3-4 can grabber rather than 2 minibot racers.

With the speed that 1114 has shown in acquiring totes, I would be only mildly surprised if they managed to pull 2 containers off the center bump then grab 3 yellow totes, all in auto.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

You missed something else here. This year, the GDC intentionally (or unintentionally, I hope) made a game that was significantly harder than previous years. Stacking totes isn't hard, but stacking totes, then placing containers on TOP of totes for the big scores is very hard. In addition, this is one of the few games in recent memory where a mistake can descore a tremendous amount of points. Make no mistake - this is a very hard game to play.

As a result, you have a game where a handful of teams are doing very, very well. The rest are struggling mightily.... and in some cases even being shuttled off to the side and not participating so they don't interfere with their stratospheric partners.

It's not like last year where even the most basic robot could do an assist. Unfortunate and probably accidental, but that's the game and teams want to win.

To answer the first question: I was surprised that the top 6 teams are so far separated from the next tier. I expected a tilt in the distribution but not the segmenting.

On the second point: I agree with this assessment as well with the discussion of the multiple point gains for doing multiple tasks in a single robot. Last year spread that across 3 robots. Combining the multiplier with the difficulty that approaches some of the end games has really separated the top tier.

Even though we're in that top tier, I'm not happy with it because it makes the game less interesting and attractive to our participants and target student population. (But I also can't tell our kids to start throwing matches...)

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by GrifBot

I would in fact agree with this point. However, you have to find a way to utilize every robot in order to succeed. Even if you have, per say, a very weak bin grabber, let that robot do that, even if it takes a little bit longer. You will have more time to stack, and they will cap in time. Just find the strong suits of each robot, even if they're small.

Not so fast on that point. That's not what is happening in the highest scoring regional playoffs. And the game design encourages that. In fact in a match where we had 1323 off the field while we added the can grabber, our alliance got the 4 pt robot set in auto to score 32 points total, the only perfect auto at the event. The field is so tight that having 3 moving robots while building many stacks becomes risky compared to the payoff.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I'm hoping after the season is over someone on 1114 could give a timeline of how they moved through build season, because it looks like they had the robot ready to go by the end of Week 3.

Originally Posted by philso

Yes, it would be hugely educational and inspirational for the community (and greatly appreciated) if someone from 1114 could describe the various design options they considered, the decisions they made and the reasoning behind their decisions. Some of us have already been speculating on various topics in one of the other threads and would love to know what the real deal is.

I think we can get this topic covered in a fair bit of detail at a potential presentation at the 2015 FIRST Championship Conferences in St. Louis.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nd-conferences

[Arpan]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I think we can get this topic covered in a fair bit of detail at a potential presentation at the 2015 FIRST Championship Conferences in St. Louis.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nd-conferences

AAAAAAAH YES.

In other news - anyone notice that sideswipe's swipey arm is made of un-anodized versaframe?

I forsee a step bin grabber in the near future.

[KeeganP]

Originally Posted by Arpan

AAAAAAAH YES.

In other news - anyone notice that sideswipe's swipey arm is made of un-anodized versaframe?

I forsee a step bin grabber in the near future.

Perhaps a bin Swiper?

Looks like I need to find a way to get to St. Louis now! Always been in awe of 1114's strategical designs, so I'd love to hear more about the decisions firsthand.

[Aidan H.]

Originally Posted by KeeganP

Perhaps a bin Swiper?

I don't know if you've seen this already, but it looks like they tried out their BinSwiper already (GTRC Quals 57): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7-NigYFrWo

It looks like their first 2 bins are captured at about 2 seconds (better speed it up 1114 , the "chokehold" number seems to be 1/4 sec!) and they have the other 2 at ~12 sec.

*For some reason, Q57 isn't on WFN, so we just have this video of their 4 bin auto... until Waterloo?

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by KeeganP

Perhaps a bin Swiper?

Simbot no swiping!

[philso]

Originally Posted by Karthik

I think we can get this topic covered in a fair bit of detail at a potential presentation at the 2015 FIRST Championship Conferences in St. Louis.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...nd-conferences

Yesss! THANK YOU! Will have to go to Champs even if our team doesn't earn a spot.

Please also consider making a recording available. I am sure those unable to attend Champs would greatly appreciate the opportunity to get insights into your engineering process.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by philso

Please also consider making a recording available. I am sure those unable to attend Champs would greatly appreciate the opportunity to get insights into your engineering process.

If you want to learn more about our processes you can also check out the following resources:

Simbot Seminar Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...o6sOEVMR821tkV

Podcast with the EWCP describing our processes: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=96123

Team Created Resources: http://www.simbotics.org/resources

[DonRotolo]

You see, that's the thing: 1114 is successful because they work at it, tenaciously and incessantly. But it's no secret: Not only do they post reams of information for all to see, Karthik has spoken at CMP about their process for as long as I can remember. Most are recorded and available somewhere.

The way I see it, beating 1114 is easy: Just do what they do, only more better.