Was the Low Bar worth it?

[Drakxii]

Yep, very helpful for those breaches and auto mode.

[Nuttyman54]

For 5803, the low bar was absolutely the right decision, since we did not want to tackle a high shooter as rookies. We designed a robot that we felt would play qualification matches well and seed well, with the ultimate season goal being to qualify for World Championships. Without the requirements of a shooter, the low bar was absolutely our biggest asset:

1) It was our first working autonomous mode (and only working auto until our 3rd event)
2) It was our fastest cycling defense which enabled us, as rookies, to capture the #1 seed at PNW District Championship an #4 seed on Curie. I would say we built a pretty good seeding robot once we got it running well. Our best performances had us scoring 8 balls solo at Champs with 30 seconds left on the clock.
3) We designed with a focus on breaching and had the capability to solo cross all 9 defenses (though we only ever attempted Drawbridge once, without any prior practice with the real drawbridge, and gave up after 2 unsuccessful attempts to maintain control of it all the way down).

[jajabinx124]

I think it was worth it. It made many of our cycles quick and our drivers were the most comfortable doing low bar high goal cycles in teleop I'd say. Also, our low bar high goal auto mode is our most consistent auto mode.. Being able to go under the low bar and over Cat A, B, and D defenses was nice which meant we could essentially breach on our own which was important to us at regional's where our bot was the one relied to get at least 3 RP's per match.

It did affect what type of shooter we wanted to pick this year (either a flywheel or a catapult) since we weren't a fan of implementing a flywheel shooter and putting that on the robot with constraints. (we ended up going with a pneumatic catapult because it was easier to program, but it was also easier to fit on the robot if we wanted to go under the low bar) It was definitely worth it IMO.

[Kevin Leonard]

I'm torn.

On one hand on 5254 we've had our shots blocked multiple times throughout the season, and getting a shooter from that height to consistently make shots from multiple locations is difficult.

On the other hand being able to do the low bar helps us ensure the breach, and I'm not sure we could have made a drawbridge/sallyport mechanism as effective as 1241 or 27 did.

Additionally having a low center of gravity was very useful, especially as we saw so many teams get tipped throughout the season.

[hotwheel326]

I'd say yes because it allowed us to renovate our autonomous, scaling system and main arm in general. It was a challenge yes, but it was nice to come across and go under the bar smoothly and fast after final modifications were completed.

[PayneTrain]

Knowing what we know now about how the meta of Stronghold works at our levels of play, a low bar capable robot with the functions and qualities we set out at the beginning of the season made sense when weighing our goals and our resources.

Were we to build a second robot for offseason events, we would almost 100% go with a tall robot in the vein of a 2451 or maybe an 1197, but not something like 1241/3476. We can learn how to do some things for the first time or learn different approaches to the game.

[JohnFogarty]

I'm also torn. Both teams I worked with went low, and the team I'm an alumni of went low too. It worked out well for at least 2/3 of them. I like low CG robots, but after watching Newton I could see why tall could have been much easier to make a more effective robot with at least from a simple design standpoint.

[arc25565]

Low bar was worth it for our team for a variety of reasons:
-Kept the center of gravity low which prevented flipping. Without the low bar we would have built a much higher robot.
-Excellent in learning about compact electronics and some space saving ideas.
-The low bar was also good because it gave you an easy autonomous.

If i was to redesign our robot i would have most defiantly kept it low bar capable

[jspatz1]

Originally Posted by JoaquinC

Many low robots were also faced with the challenge, as largely discussed in the thread: Your tall opaque robot is now illegal, of having their cameras blocked by taller bots. For some, this was a serious issue and for others like 1986 this was just another problem that needed to be solved. Though I’m not sure if they eventually implemented this at champs.

We did use it with success in this match.

[Ginger Power]

For 4607, the low bar was definitely worth it. It took absolutely no functionality away from our robot. We could still climb, block robots with our 54" tall arm, and we also had a low center of gravity.

If there were no low bar at all, I think our robot would look almost identical to how it looks now. It might be 15" tall instead of 12".

[Mark Sheridan]

We on 3476 were very happy that there was abundant low bar bots to work with. Our robot had a lot of weaknesses and almost always a low robot compensated this. If more teams went tall, we would had a much tougher time.

[Mastonevich]

I believe our team, and many others for that matter, would have had a better chance at adding a climber if we were tall. For that reason, it was not worth it to me.

[aciarniello]

We chose to not go low bar, and I'm 100% certain that was the right choice for us. I don't believe we had the design experience to have pulled that packaging off effectively.

HOWEVER. Our high CG was absolutely our Achilles heel. Tipping cost us a regional win, and I believe it also cost us Carson. Given the chance to redesign this robot, I would completely re-work our shooting mechanism to bring it down way lower and back in the robot so that we could still have our undefendable OW shot but without such a CG penalty. Probably not a full-on low bar robot though.

[Bryce Clegg]

Yes, it was worth it. Going under the low bar gave an easy access to the opponents courtyard for scoring, especially considering our chassis was low to the ground and had a chance at catching on some of the other defenses. If we could have done it all over again, we would have designed a different shooter, one that comes out of the frame perimeter and saved room for other parts of our robot inside the chassis.

[pfreivald]

The only thing I would change about our robot is that I'd have pneumatic wheels on the drivetrain, and a better portcullis lift. (I couldn't find decent pneumatic wheels by the time we'd hammered down the choice for sure, and should have ordered them at kickoff just in case--live and learn on that score.)

I was tremendously surprised at how many robots *weren't* designed like ours--we were three feet tall, but everything could collapse down to go under the low bar. That made the low bar a bit more resource-heavy (air), but entirely doable, and also made the other manipulators (I think we were one of the few for whom the drawbridge is nearly effortless, and we have a good climber) significantly easier to design.