Low Bar

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by sagi34

cross all defences and get a 2 boulder autonomous (which I think is almost impossible without crossing the middle line) isn't about the height of the robot in my opinion.
I think that shooting high is a bit harder, but still lots of teams will do it.
the main problem will be scaling, it is very hard to put almost 2 meters of climbing mechanism into 40 cm robot (sorry for metric system lol), especially if you want to shoot high and scale the tower.
you will see the best teams do it all, but I think that it will be 20 teams max.

2 ball autonomous seems much harder than the 20 point for stacking 2 yellow totes last year and that a 1 out of 30-40 ish skill last year (meaning 1 team out of 30-40 could reliably accomplish that task in a match). I suppose that 2 ball auton is closer to a 1 out of 100 ish skill meaning at most 30 to 40 teams in the world will be able to do this reliably. And as I type that, I don't believe it. No Sagi34 is right. more like a 1 out of 200 ish skill for 20 teams max.

Dr. Joe J.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

2 ball autonomous seems much harder than the 20 point for stacking 2 yellow totes last year and that a 1 out of 30-40 ish skill last year (meaning 1 team out of 30-40 could reliably accomplish that task in a match). I suppose that 2 ball auton is closer to a 1 out of 100 ish skill meaning at most 30 to 40 teams in the world will be able to do this reliably. And as I type that, I don't believe it. No Sagi34 is right. more like a 1 out of 200 ish skill for 20 teams max.

Dr. Joe J.

its easier than you think in theory, whether we pull it off is another story. I think many teams will attempt it as its 10-20 extra points if you score 2 or 3 balls in HG. Seems to me there is extra time that teams will not want to waste. I would say 1 in 50 teams will pull it off. About 1 successful per competition. I no way is it impossible as there are fixed points on the field for all necessary steps in achieving it.

10 extra points 2 ball auto = 2 HG tele points (extra 12.5% weaken)
20 extra points 3 ball auto = 4 HG tele points (extra 25% weaken)

Since it matters teams will try.

[Anthony Galea]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

2 ball autonomous seems much harder than the 20 point for stacking 2 yellow totes last year and that a 1 out of 30-40 ish skill last year (meaning 1 team out of 30-40 could reliably accomplish that task in a match). I suppose that 2 ball auton is closer to a 1 out of 100 ish skill meaning at most 30 to 40 teams in the world will be able to do this reliably. And as I type that, I don't believe it. No Sagi34 is right. more like a 1 out of 200 ish skill for 20 teams max.

Dr. Joe J.

Even then, i expect it to be able to be consistently accomplished by <5 teams, if at all. It just seems to be a task that requires insane accuracy, and requires ridiculously precise measurements, with a less than 5" margin of error (depending on how your intake works), and then being able to score twice with the right precision will be hard.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Boltman

its easier than you think in theory, whether we pull it off is another story. I think many teams will attempt it as its 10-20 extra points if you score 2 or 3 balls in HG. Seems to me there is extra time that teams will not want to waste. I would say 1 in 50 teams will pull it off.

True but a 2-3 ball auto is orders of magnitude harder than a defense of a 2-3 ball auto. Example, knocking the balls off the center line to anywhere but where the team that is doing the 2-3 ball auto wants them. A multi ball auto might help you capture the tower during quals but I'm not convinced that it secures a regional/championship win once teams can plan out defenses for it.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

True but a 2-3 ball auto is orders of magnitude harder than a defense of a 2-3 ball auto. Example, knocking the balls off the center line to anywhere but where the team that is doing the 2-3 ball auto wants them. A multi ball auto might help you capture the tower during quals but I'm not convinced that it secures a regional/championship win once teams can plan out defenses for it.

Teams cannot defend in Auto without reprogramming the spy bot and highly risk a foul impeding crossing. As for midline shenanigans that means that bot is not scoring either. Not likely I'm saying.

I really don't see the advantage to not Scoring in auto yourself and attempting to prevent team X from doing their multi ball auto the mid line rule and the not prevent crossing rule make that highly unlikely to succeed.

Plus the way defenses are laid out they are on opposite sides so main auto action is opposite.

I guess it could happen however that seems very unlikely. But who knows?

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Boltman

<snip>
I think many teams will attempt it as its 10-20 extra points if you score 2 or 3 balls in HG. Seems to me there is extra time that teams will not want to waste. I would say 1 in 50 teams will pull it off. About 1 successful per competition.

<snip>

10 extra points 2 ball auto = 2 HG tele points (extra 12.5% weaken)
20 extra points 3 ball auto = 4 HG tele points (extra 25% weaken)

Since it matters teams will try.

Originally Posted by 3175student17

<snip>
It just seems to be a task that requires insane accuracy, and requires ridiculously precise measurements, with a less than 5" margin of error (depending on how your intake works), and then being able to score twice with the right precision will be hard.

I hear you, Boltman. I definitely see the value. But, in the end, I'm with you, 3175student17.

I just think this is a tougher hill to climb than most teams that attempt it will be able to pull off. Many will try. Few will succeed.


Dr. Joe J.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by 3175student17

Even then, i expect it to be able to be consistently accomplished by <5 teams, if at all. It just seems to be a task that requires insane accuracy, and requires ridiculously precise measurements, with a less than 5" margin of error (depending on how your intake works), and then being able to score twice with the right precision will be hard.

But not impossible. We have seen over and over teams do the "impossible" so I am saying it'll be more common than the way it seems. Many teams will want to max out the 15 seconds with scoring plays. I have seen more than 5 teams out of 4000 pull stunts like that off every year I have watched. When you get right down to it its easy if you have precision and speed. Its hard no doubt and I 'm sure many including us may fail. Many will try and some will pull it off.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Boltman

Teams cannot defend in Auto without reprogramming the spy bot and highly risk a foul impeding crossing. As for midline shenanigans that means that bot is not scoring either. Not likely I'm saying.

I really don't see the advantage to not Scoring in auto yourself and attempting to prevent team X from doing their multi ball auto the mid line rule and the not prevent crossing rule make that highly unlikely to succeed.

Plus the way defenses are laid out they are on opposite sides so main auto action is opposite.

I guess it could happen however that seems very unlikely. But who knows?

First, the spy bot is on your offensive side of the field and has nothing to do with defending multi ball autos. 2nd hitting two balls out of the way takes far less time then is needed to score in auto, they aren't mutually exclusive. A 1 or 2 ball lead on the tower coming out of auto is a huge advantage which is why high level teams will attempt that very hard challenge. If a team starts consistently making 2-3 auto balls it is clearly beneficial for an opposite alliance in eliminations to try to get to those balls first and prevent their opponents from scoring them. Wasn't it better for 1114 to try and defend 254's three ball auto in 2014 instead of scoring a high goal themselves.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

First, the spy bot is on your offensive side of the field and has nothing to do with defending multi ball autos. 2nd hitting two balls out of the way takes far less time then is needed to score in auto, they aren't mutually exclusive. A 1 or 2 ball lead on the tower coming out of auto is a huge advantage which is why high level teams will attempt that very hard challenge. If a team starts consistently making 2-3 auto balls it is clearly beneficial for an opposite alliance in eliminations to try to get to those balls first and prevent their opponents from scoring them. Wasn't it better for 1114 to try and defend 254's three ball auto in 2014 instead of scoring a high goal themselves.

How are you planning on knocking balls in auto without crossing the mid-line and avoiding the high chance of a foul?

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Boltman

How are you planning on knocking balls in auto without crossing the mid-line and avoiding the high chance of a foul?

How are teams planning to collect balls without getting foul? It seems a lot easier to just hit a ball then it does to intake it. Pretty sure it can be done with a pneumatic cylinder and a couple sticks.

[Boltman]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

How are teams planning to collect balls without getting foul? It seems a lot easier to just hit a ball then it does to intake it. Pretty sure it can be done with a pneumatic cylinder and a couple sticks.

Perhaps I suspect intake to be easier.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Boltman

Perhaps I suspect intake to be easier.

Anything involving the center line involves a ridiculous amount of accuracy, so I suppose it may be possible that you're right. That being said, it's a general rule that screwing something up is significantly easier than doing it, and I see no reason to suspect that's not the case here.

[Joe G.]

I'm pretty surprised, and just a little worried, by how many teams are responding "yes" to this poll. I say all this as part of a team that, after much deliberation, decided to go for it, but I'm worried that there are a lot of teams out there who are not fully thinking through the rather dramatic implications of designing for the low bar, and the actual strategic value of it to the average team.

I think that there are a lot of FRC game tasks, or even just general robot characteristics, which teams do not attempt or prioritize every year simply because somebody told them "trying to do everything is bad, simple is good" rather than out of a tangible, well thought out reason that it's going to be difficult for the team to pull off, or because of a valid trade-off which improves performance elsewhere. Shifters, for example. I have a hard time seeing how choosing one bulletproof, battle-proven COTs gearbox over another bulletproof, battle-proven COTs gearbox makes a robot appreciably simpler, or quicker to put together. Last year, the classic case was canburglers. The vast majority of FIRST teams dismissed this task as "too hard," only to have teams that didn't see it this way rapidly retrofit their robots to steal cans during lunch. This year, I expect to see teams fail to meet their potential in this way in regards to scaling. It's an easy task to dismiss, but also an easy thing to add after the fact (look at the WCP MCC, for example). The common thread is, it can be achieved through an "auxiliary" mechanism, something that can just be slapped on top of a robot without affecting the rest of it that much. And it's pretty close to a "binary" task; unlike something like shooting where there will be a huge spectrum of performance with gains to be made by optimization at every level, you either scale or you don't, and there isn't much to be gained by spending a huge amount of time optimizing how quickly you can do it. I would argue that some of the defenses also fall under the category of tasks more teams will avoid based on philosophy than sound engineering analysis.

The low bar is not one of these tasks. It is the opposite of these tasks.

The ability to do the low bar is immensely integral to a robot's design. It affects every single element of it, and disqualifies a number of otherwise viable designs and approaches.

The low bar takes practically every archetypical design from the previous game to which you could effectively say "build team XYZ's robot from that year," Rebound Rumble, and throws them out the window.

The low bar will make your electronics team cry.

The low bar has a direct and dramatic impact on the effectiveness of every single subsystem of your robot. Instead of releasing boulders from four feet up, you're either releasing them from one foot, or adding in systems you didn't need without the low bar to make up the difference. Same with hanging, your reach distance changed dramatically.

The low bar also has its advantages. It's one more defense that you're guaranteed to be able to breach, taking the number of other defenses to design for down from 8 to 6, and possibly eliminating some of the ones which require dedicated mechanisms to achieve. It's also the most direct path to/from the secret passage, probably the fastest defense to cross, and provides you with an optimal cycle time.

I'm worried, however, that a lot of teams are overestimating the degree to which they'll be able to take advantage of this.

By doing the low bar, you have made being an accurate high goal shooter quite a bit harder. You have also made your shots easier to defend if you stick to a low release point. Teams doing the low bar are betting on being able to make up the difference through an increased cycle rate. The number of extra shots a team can expect to miss by building for the low bar is hard to estimate, but likely not trivial, and I would argue that for many teams and the rate at which we've seen that defenses like the rock wall and rough terrain can be crossed, it may be more effective to cycle over these with a taller robot. They are also betting on consistently being effective enough to take priority over their alliance partners in use of the low bar. If as many teams want to use it as people say there will be, there's going to be a traffic jam through the thing.

By doing the low bar, many teams are completely neglecting the possibility of scaling. These teams are demanding an extra two high goal boulders a match from their low bar cross, minimum.

For teams that have chosen to neglect the high goal, the picture is even more stark. A team would need to run five extra cycles per match to make up the difference from a scale, a task which becomes dramatically easier if you allow your robot to be tall. I would bet that most teams won't even average five a match, let alone five extra cycles due purely to low bar efficiency gains.

Many teams are designing to be "breaching specialists," crossing all 9 defense styles. This gives them an extra five points per match (and no change in RP), when compared to crossing 8. Scaling, or even a single high goal shot, does the same or better.

And that's all neglecting alliance partners. The low bar is weird, in that it can be reasonably expected that both the best and worst teams in FRC will be able to do it. For the best teams, the advantage in cycle time is clear, and it's integral to their strategies. For the teams that struggle to put a kitbot on the field, taking away an effective way to score points that you're given from the start would be a poor idea. For a team in the middle, it's a reasonable assumption that their partners will be able to take care of it, and may be actively hogging it for their own cycles.

I also think Dr. Joe is right. But teams should consider, which will be the more effective robots? The ones which were designed for five weeks to do the low bar, and then hastily had a few tall bits added? Or the ones which were designed from the beginning to take full advantage of their height?

Unless you expect to be able to take full advantage of the low bar's efficiency gains, it may be in many team's best interests to walk away from the extreme design tradeoffs that the low bar forces.

[Abrakadabra]

Not sure how this thread about the Low Bar got sidetracked into a discussion about 2-ball auton, but here is my question:

How many teams have actually practiced going under the Low Bar WITH the cloth barrier in place? If you have, how would you say that it affects your ability to successfully cross the defense?

Also - it may have been stated elsewhere, but please note that the Team drawings of the field specify black iron pipe as the weight for the curtain, while the actual field will have an aluminum pipe - quite a difference in weight!

[zinthorne]

[quote=Abrakadabra;1532940]Not sure how this thread about the Low Bar got sidetracked into a discussion about 2-ball auton, but here is my question:

How many teams have actually practiced going under the Low Bar WITH the cloth barrier in place? If you have, how would you say that it affects your ability to successfully cross the defense?

We have tried it. You need to make sure you don't have anything on the top of your robot for it to get caught on. It's very easy to get snagged. And you should have some time of roll bars or something else that accomplishes protecting the top of your robot. The bar/fabric will catch on the inside of your robot easily.