The Highest Levels of Play

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by marshall

This actually brings up something that is on my mind right now. When does it become necessary/advantageous for a more average team to build multiple robots to compete at both a regional/district level and at the championship level?

We started building a second robot in 2013. Here's a general synopsis of how it has affected us:

No practice bot: 2008-2012
-2 championship appearances in 5 years
-no appearances in championship eliminations
-no regional wins
-normally seeded 15-30
With practice bot: 2013-
-2 championship appearances in 3 years
-2 appearances in championship eliminations
-1 division win
-1 regional win
-normally seed 1-10

In 2013, we simply decided we wanted to have one so we did it. We had a rough start, not actually finishing the practice bot until week 2 of regionals, but it helped immensely. It's always advantageous to have a practice robot, it will allow you to make huge improvements to your robot during competition season.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

It's always advantageous to have a practice robot, it will allow you to make huge improvements to your robot during competition season.

Let me clarify my question a bit. I think y'all are assuming I meant building two identical robots. That's not quite what I meant.

When does it become necessary/advantageous for a more average team to build two different robots to compete at both a regional/district level, using Robot A and strategy A and at the championship level, using Robot B and strategy B?

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by marshall

When does it become necessary/advantageous for a more average team to build two different robots to compete at both a regional/district level, using Robot A and strategy A and at the championship level, using Robot B and strategy B?

I think that's a contradiction in terms. Building two different robots is beyond the capability of an average team. If they're capable of building two different competitive robots in three months, they are considerably above average.

[Harshizzle]

Re: Two different robots,

Its interesting to look at what some teams that were prequalified for champs did. Both 27 and 2848 went specialist routes, both being canburglars/cappers. I can't say whether this would have changed if they werent prequalified, but on our team, our early ideas involved being a tote specialist. We scrapped that design because we didn't want to rely on other teams for most of our points at the regional level (now our robot ended up relying on other teams anyway, but that's a different problem). At champs we thought that design would have done well, but we still had to qualify first.

In short, building a champs specific robot and a regional specific robot probably won't be feasible for most teams. The time and money investment only makes sense if you know you'll qualify for champs. But if you've already qualified, why build a regional specific robot at all?

There could also be an argument made for qualification specific designs vs. Elimation specific designs.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by marshall

Let me clarify my question a bit. I think y'all are assuming I meant building two identical robots. That's not quite what I meant.

When does it become necessary/advantageous for a more average team to build two different robots to compete at both a regional/district level, using Robot A and strategy A and at the championship level, using Robot B and strategy B?

I don't think I've ever heard of a team building two different robots intended for use at different levels of competition.
I'm also not sure there's a legal way of doing so within the rules of FRC.

The only comparisons I can come up with are total robot rebuilds, where much of the robot is rebuilt or replaced using the withholding allowance and COTS parts, and when 2826 brought an entirely new machine with them to IRI 2013.

[artK]

Originally Posted by marshall

Let me clarify my question a bit. I think y'all are assuming I meant building two identical robots. That's not quite what I meant.

When does it become necessary/advantageous for a more average team to build two different robots to compete at both a regional/district level, using Robot A and strategy A and at the championship level, using Robot B and strategy B?

Could you give an example of what your talking about happening? Because I see two ways this might be happening. One is like what 1241 and 1285 did this year having two robots with two strategies? The other is like what 900 did this year with the harpoons at champs.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

I think that's a contradiction in terms. Building two different robots is beyond the capability of an average team. If they're capable of building two different competitive robots in three months, they are considerably above average.

Fair point. Maybe I meant "above average".

[iVanDuzer]

Originally Posted by artK

Could you give an example of what your talking about happening? Because I see two ways this might be happening. One is like what 1241 and 1285 did this year having two robots with two strategies? The other is like what 900 did this year with the harpoons at champs.

1285 and 1241 are two separate teams based in one school. Last year, which was 1285's rookie year, they built identical robots, but this year they stayed as separate as possible. For all intents and purposes, they're two distinct teams (like 254 and 1868). It's actually a really cool program: all the students get to choose what team they join at the beginning of the year. Apparently the numbers naturally split with more rookies / second year students going to 1285, and the veterans gravitating towards 1241.

I think a more relevant example would be 503 in 2008. After seeing 1114's dominant performance at Midwest that year, Frog Force completely revamped their design and played in Newton with a very Simbot-esque design. They were obviously not as polished as 1114 that year, though, and while the designs were similar, it didn't really work out for them in the long run. There aren't any videos from Great Lakes that year, so I don't know exactly when they made the switch. Compare: Week 1 Midwest regional and Newton Division.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by artK

Could you give an example of what your talking about happening? Because I see two ways this might be happening. One is like what 1241 and 1285 did this year having two robots with two strategies? The other is like what 900 did this year with the harpoons at champs.

I don't know that I have a specific example in mind honestly. What I can do though is explain why this is on my mind lately.

North Carolina is moving to a district model for 2016. No surprise there really. However, if you've been watching 900, you'll know that we're a fan of the niche play the last few years. It makes it fun and different for us.

District play doesn't lend itself to niche roles though and if we hope to get back to St Louis (and we do) then we may have to 'abandon' our unique interpretations of the rules in favor of building a robot that is a little more mainstream.

Nothing wrong with that but I'm not under any delusions that we could keep up with the teams who have been building robust and awesome mainstream robots for many years. We're good but we ain't that good. Having a more mainstream robot instead of a niche play is less valuable at Championships if we seek to go further... and we do. I suspect that the niche robots are more valuable as alliance partners during selections at Championships than they are at a district event. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by marshall

I don't know that I have a specific example in mind honestly. What I can do though is explain why this is on my mind lately.

North Carolina is moving to a district model for 2016. No surprise there really. However, if you've been watching 900, you'll know that we're a fan of the niche play the last few years. It makes it fun and different for us.

District play doesn't lend itself to niche roles though and if we hope to get back to St Louis (and we do) then we may have to 'abandon' our unique interpretations of the rules in favor of building a robot that is a little more mainstream.

Nothing wrong with that but I'm not under any delusions that we could keep up with the teams who have been building robust and awesome mainstream robots for many years. We're good but we ain't that good. Having a more mainstream robot instead of a niche play is less valuable at Championships if we seek to go further... and we do. I suspect that the niche robots are more valuable as alliance partners during selections at Championships than they are at a district event. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

I'd argue that niche play is more likely to make championships in the district model than in a regional model.

Take 27 and 2848 for examples. If they weren't pre-qualified teams, 27 would have made championships (by merit of their MSC finalist appearance), and 2848 would not have, as they only made finals at their second event, where 1817 received a wildcard, and they would not have.

Both were solely cappers, and both ended up in championship eliminations.

Role players are likely to consistently make eliminations at their events, and thus accrue district points, as well as robot awards. And with the stuff I know 900 is capable of(building sold machines with sick controls), you should have no problem qualifying for championships via district points with your machines.

[Lil' Lavery]

Obviously, every game is different, but I would put a lot of caution into intentionally designing as a "niche" or "support" robot in a district structure. Generally speaking, you're taking away your ability to "control your own destiny" when it comes to district ranking and reach the district CMP and subsequently the CMP. In some areas, a large enough portion of the population will reach DCMP that you may be willing take that risk and hope you end up on a successful DCMP alliance. In others, you may end up watching from home.

Sometimes a niche/support robot won't even be viable/useful at lower levels of play. There were teams who's only real utility was grabbing center cans that went undrafted at district events this year, because at those events, simply putting up points was more valuable than getting additional cans that weren't likely to be utilized. Keep in mind that alliance captains will often have goals other than winning the entire tournament in the district structure, as a semi-finals or finals run is worth more than a boom-or-bust run that loses in the quarters.

Other times, a quality niche/support robot will curse itself to the "valley of doom." Frequently, the top notch support robots will be selected at the end of the first round or early part of the second round of alliance selection, ending up on one of the lower ranking alliances as a result. Prior to 2015, that meant a QF tango with some of the top ranked teams at the event, not a favorable scenario to be in. Each team will need to do that math to determine if a couple ~8 point selections and QF exits will be enough points for them to reach their DCMP, as it will vary based on district size.

[Jared]

With only six weeks to work on the robot and an extremely busy seven week competition season, even the best teams need to realize that doing everything perfectly just isn't possible.

The highest level of play is usually achieved by teams who pick one method of scoring, and become the absolute best at it. Reliability is just so important in FRC, and there isn't time for any team to completely master every part of every game. If build season was a year long, things might be different.

1114 in 2015 couldn't do coopertition, pick up stacks of multiple totes, or place containers on top of existing stacks, yet only missed Einstein finals by a few points because of reasons unrelated to their design.

In 2013, Einstein wasn't filled with 30 point climbers because teams who prioritized shooting were simply able to score more points. 1114, one of the best robots with a 30 point climber that year ended up being eliminated after they slipped off and could no longer climb the tower.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Obviously, every game is different, but I would put a lot of caution into intentionally designing as a "niche" or "support" robot in a district structure. Generally speaking, you're taking away your ability to "control your own destiny" when it comes to district ranking and reach the district CMP and subsequently the CMP. In some areas, a large enough portion of the population will reach DCMP that you may be willing take that risk and hope you end up on a successful DCMP alliance. In others, you may end up watching from home.

This is definitely one of our biggest design requirements - we want to be able to control our own destiny by aiming for the number one seed. This drives the design of our robot.

We knew we wanted to get that autonomous tote stack ourselves, because the likeliness of three individual robots getting that stack together was approximately 0%.

There's a bit of gut feeling involved as well; we figured a robot that could build an entire stack within itself and then score it (the bottom-up stacking style) would be more efficient than one that made stacks on the platform one at a time.

I'll probably edit in more things later.

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

I don't think I've ever heard of a team building two different robots intended for use at different levels of competition.
I'm also not sure there's a legal way of doing so within the rules of FRC.

The only comparisons I can come up with are total robot rebuilds, where much of the robot is rebuilt or replaced using the withholding allowance and COTS parts, and when 2826 brought an entirely new machine with them to IRI 2013.

team 2980 managed it this year: their robot had some sort of structural issue at their second event, so they completely disassembled it, and it was rebuilt by DCMP... IDK how they managed it, though...

also, on the subject of practice robots: they only help if you make robots that are at least decent. 2013 is the smudge on my team's record, and our practice bot didn't do too much to help. heck, even when it could climb, the competition robot still couldn't on field. however, this year, our robot was about average, but because of all the driving practice, we were able to become slightly above average, and discovered that we could upright containers

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'd have to disagree with this and would instead suggest:

1. Seed high
2. Win matches
3. Desirable to partners


While typically, winning matches is the key to seeding high it is not always the case. Reading the manual and understanding HOW to seed high is incredibly important to controlling your own destiny come alliance selection time.

I disagree again:

1. Desireable
2. seed high
3. win matches

at DCMP this year, my team seeded well, 17th (I think), yet we weren't picked because our skillset didn't quite line up with what other alliances wanted. at Champs, we seeded in the 50's, but were picked as the 3rd robot because our skillset was desirable to that alliance (they all liked upright containers, and we could upright them. also canburglar. you can't control your schedule, but if you show well, you could succeed anyway