Will Your Robot Be High Goaling, Scoring Gears, AND Climbing?

[MikeFinn]

Based on posts by other people on Chief Delphi, it sounds like a lot more teams will be attempting to score in every way possible than in the past. I was a little startled when I saw that many teams will be attempting to score in the high efficiency boiler, score gears, and climb. I made this poll just to see how many teams are actually planning on doing all three.
I'm aware many teams will say they are attempting to do all three and that may not occur on their final robot, but I'm still curious to see the replies.

[Donut]

I always love the optimism of week 1.

This poll tells me that more than 60% of teams will have at least one mechanism on their robot that never works or works so poorly that it isn't worth using (scoring 20 balls in the high goal all teleop). I will concede that a small portion of teams will succeed in having at least decent ability in all categories.

For everyone who voted the first option, please go watch Karthik's Effective FIRST Strategies video, and then reconsider your goal.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by MikeFinn

Based on posts by other people on Chief Delphi, it sounds like a lot more teams will be attempting to score in every way possible than in the past. I was a little startled when I saw that many teams will be attempting to score in the high efficiency boiler, score gears, and climb. I made this poll just to see how many teams are actually planning on doing all three.
I'm aware many teams will say they are attempting to do all three and that may not occur on their final robot, but I'm still curious to see the replies.

This is about what it sounds like every year, it's just that some of it fades off before it's actually implemented. A lot of it doesn't, unfortunately. It's why we spend so much time begging people to consider what they'd pick as an alliance captain. You choose: Robot X with an inaccurate shooter, unreliable climber, and slow gear running; or Robot Y with fast gears and/or a slow but reliable climber, and no shooter? Because if you think you're going to field a top-tier high goal shooter with the autonomous routines to match and a 7-cycle gear runner and whatever awesome climber, you are wrong.* If you know that's what you're going to do, congratulations on all your past success at the walk-before-you-run levels of robot design and I'll enjoy seeing you on Einstein.

*If you think you're going to build a sort-of-okay climber and gear runner and floor pickup and on and on, good on you for honest assessment, but why?

[SenorZ]

Originally Posted by Donut

For everyone who voted the first option, please go watch Karthik's Effective FIRST Strategies video, and then reconsider your goal.

Karthik was "terrified" by the number of teams who said they'd do low bar last year. (330 ::ahem:: low bot ::ahem:: world champs)

CD is also populated to a large number of people on established, well funded, and competent teams.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by SenorZ

Karthik was "terrified" by the number of teams who said they'd do low bar last year. (330 ::ahem:: low bot ::ahem:: world champs)

CD is also populated to a large number of people on established, well funded, and competent teams.

That's why I conceded a small number of teams will succeed. 330 is one of the elites that win multiple events almost every season, a past World Championship winner. More than 99% of FRC teams are not. I'll also note that their first pick, the Roboteers, were one of the best high goal shooters in the world in part because they did not compromise their design for the low bar.

Karthik was correct last year, the vast majority of teams who limited themselves to fitting under the low bar while shooting were mediocre high goal shooters, or mediocre Boulder scorers period. You only needed to average 2.66 boulders per robot for a capture last year, yet a capture was rare outside of the top 2 - 4 playoff alliances in the first 3 weeks last year, and more than half the boulder scoring was being done by one robot typically.

If you are on one of those elite level teams more power to you trying it all. My advice is listen to the advice of many experienced FIRSTers and become elite in 2 out of 3 instead. You can win a World Championship without doing it all.

[Siri]

Please never look at how an Einstein robot (particularly an AC or first pick!) sets their design specs as the "correct" answer. Setting your specs to be a world champion powerhouse does not make you a world champion powerhouse. Meeting 30% of those specs is not going to make you 30% of a world champion. In the literal sense, it probably even won't get you a third of the way there. Just because it worked for them doesn't mean it will for us mere mortals--statistically speaking it almost certainly isn't the correct choice. All the winning alliance captains of every other event are not looking for poor 330 knockoffs; they're looking for your best effort to meet alliance strategy needs.

[Jay O'Donnell]

We have two that we've made much bigger priorities, and the third will be extra if we get to it.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

We have two that we've made much bigger priorities, and the third will be extra if we get to it.

This is a fairly close analogy to our decisions.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

We have two that we've made much bigger priorities, and the third will be extra if we get to it.

Yup.

[throwaway]

Originally Posted by SenorZ

Karthik was "terrified" by the number of teams who said they'd do low bar last year. (330 ::ahem:: low bot ::ahem:: world champs)

CD is also populated to a large number of people on established, well funded, and competent teams.

If you're using 330 as an example of why Karthik was wrong then you completely missed his point

Personally the results of this poll are disappointing because I thought that one of the best advantages of this game was that there are a lot of creative and focused options for lower tier teams to pursue and be successful.

[BJC]

Originally Posted by Siri

Please never look at how an Einstein robot (particularly an AC or first pick!) sets their design specs as the "correct" answer. Setting your specs to be a world champion powerhouse does not make you a world champion powerhouse. Meeting 30% of those specs is not going to make you 30% of a world champion. In the literal sense, it probably even won't get you a third of the way there. Just because it worked for them doesn't mean it will for us mere mortals--statistically speaking it almost certainly isn't the correct choice. All the winning alliance captains of every other event are not looking for poor 330 knockoffs; they're looking for your best effort to meet alliance strategy needs.

I would like to amend this with, if your goal is to make it to Einstein someday, someday you'll have to reach for the stars. It's just that the stars get a lot closer when you spent the offseason developing a rocketship.

Cheers, Bryan

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by SenorZ

Karthik was "terrified" by the number of teams who said they'd do low bar last year. (330 ::ahem:: low bot ::ahem:: world champs)

CD is also populated to a large number of people on established, well funded, and competent teams.

You really didn't take away the strategic point made there. It certainly wasn't that an alliance didn't need a bot that could go under the low bar to win the World Championship.

[Joe Ross]

I don't think 330 should have built 330's 2016 robot

[Fusion_Clint]

Teams should push their limits, a regional of AM14U3's driving around playing defense is not one I want to watch.

Some of you are coming across very elitist. Will a team/student learn more from simply assembling kit bot or from trying something completely out of their comfort zone? Yes they should try to do it in the offseason, but if they only do FRC during build season, they should try something new.

Fail early and fail often, just learn from each one. It isn't a robot right?

[Roboshant]

I think a team can feasibly achieve 2 out of the 3 tasks rather simply. (in order of simplicity)

1. Passive gear mechanism
2. Velcro (if ruled legal) or other type of drum/winch climber mechanism

The aforementioned 2 tasks could probably be manufactured and put on a robot in 1-2 weeks or less by a good amount of teams. This leaves a good amount time to develop a somewhat effective shooter. Now that time could possibly be better spent improving other function of the robot along with driver's practice. At the end of the day I think many teams find themselves with the resources to check off all three tasks, but I'm curious to see how this translates to competition.