Multiple tetras

[Andrew Blair]

Has anyone been able to dominate the game while only picking up one tetra at a time? I know at our competition the robots who did extremely well could pick up more than one, well.

[abeD]

Yes....179 swampthing

[MattB703]

Teams 66, 67, and 68 won the Great Lakes Regional. They all pick up 1 at a time. (Well I guess 67 could do 2 if they wanted but they usually held 1 at a time.

[Swampdude]

I have to say 1402 was impressive to watch. I saw them put 3 stacks of 4 up once, they may have done it more. That's 36 point's plus the row 10pt bonus (46). It's definitely a tough hole for the other team to dig out of. But for us, I think our lowest scoring matches were in the 50's only because we didn't bother scoring the same goal twice. Scoring on the opponents corners while owning your home and midfield is key. We were part of 5 matches where we scored every goal on the field with our alliances help. One of them with 845 cutting edge and 180 spam we scored 113pts - almost made it back home in that match but bumped into spam and finished half over the line. Anyhow - I watched the vidoes 108 was giving out on CD (THANKS 108 - YOU GUYS ARE AWSOME!) and I saw repeatedly teams capping over goals that were already capped, giving up the possible bonus rows for a 3pt cap. I can understand if they don't want to risk getting hit on the opponents turf but it's definitely how to dominate.

[cfox2008]

1023 only picks up one tetra at a time, and we did pretty good, same thing with our alliance partners that we went to the finals with at GLR

[Koko Ed]

I think the question should be: has nay of the robots that pick up more than one tetra dominated a competition? It looks like quality is ruling over quanity (doesn't matter if you have alot of tetras if you can't score them but what does matter is how quicly you can get them placed on a goal. That's what the winning robots have in common).

[Yan Wang]

I thought 233 was very high quality, fast, and efficient. They picked up 2 at a time... either from autoloader or HP. Probably the best example so far of a very effective multi-tetra-holding bot.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

Has anyone been able to dominate the game while only picking up one tetra at a time? I know at our competition the robots who did extremely well could pick up more than one, well.

Team 997 brought a robot to Portland that could stack up to six at a time. They had a powerful drivetrain, too. Their robot was designed to stack 7-8 tetras at once, and was a wonderful piece of engineering. Their beautifully machined grippers were things of beauty. My comments are NOT a criticism of their engineering or driving skills.

Once the other alliances figured out what they could do, they would appoint a robot to score a tetra or two until 997 finished loading, and then play defense on them. They tipped over a couple of times, and especially had trouble being defensed in the finals. The winning alliance at Portland had three robots who drove fast and smooth, and could reliably stack tetras one at a time.

Multi-stackers and really tall robots did not have much impact on the results at Portland. IMO. YMMV.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

There weren't many that could stack multiple tetras at a time. If I am correct we (648) were the only ones. Of course we didnt do it until we were in the elimination rounds. We would have the human player stack 2 tetras on the back of the bot and then we would pick them up, swing our arm around back in again and load up two more then pick them up and stack.

There were tons of bots that stacked one at a time well. 1444, 1625, 650, 935 to name a few. 650 and us were on the finalist alliance and 1444 and 1625 won along with 939. 935 was defeated in the semi's.

[EricH]

Sacramento was dominated by robots that could only pick up and score one tetra at a time. The top four or five robots only handled one at a time. 1097 was first place and had no capability for more than one. 254 could probably have handled more in a stack, but they didn't. 330 can handle up to three at a time, but only does one. 56 can only handle one. Four robots pretty much dominated the qualifying rounds, and none of them handled more than one at a time. 245, the regional winner and fifth seed, only handled one per load and cap.

The moral of the story is: robots that can handle only one tetra still play well and win.

[Bemis]

Andrew has obviously forgotten that at pittsburgh, the regional we were last at, an alliance of single cappers won. It is more important to gain rows than to cap more at once. more points are earned in this way.

[Masterfork]

Originally Posted by Yan Wang

I thought 233 was very high quality, fast, and efficient. They picked up 2 at a time... either from autoloader or HP. Probably the best example so far of a very effective multi-tetra-holding bot.

thanks but i have to agree swamp does good and also don't forget the bionic tigers 1592 they are rookies but they stack an average of 4 to 5 which is still a good amount and ohh yeah i had a great time driving with you tytus great job

[Rick TYler]

Almost forgot... although they didn't score the vision tetra (which I predicted they might), team 492 picked a tetra from the autoloader and scored it on a corner goal in autonomous. They then proceded to cap as many as five other goals per match -- one tetra at a time. Their record was 15-0-2, with a second consecutive PNW regional win. They had a low, fast, smooth robot that only held one tetra at a time and probably couldn't stack the third tetra on the center goal. What they could do was split the field like an NFL running back, and never fumble a tetra. NOBODY at our regional handled as well as 492. Their driving team was exceptionally skilled, too. I want to be them when I grow up.

More congrats to our down-the-road pals at Titan Robotics.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Masterfork

thanks but i have to agree swamp does good and also don't forget the bionic tigers 1592 they are rookies but they stack an average of 4 to 5 which is still a good amount and ohh yeah i had a great time driving with you tytus great job

<sulk>
Yeah, well, we stacked an average of four tetras per round (except for the three rounds when someone who will forever remain anonymous immobolized our arm...) and didn't even get picked for the finals.
</sulk>

[Crash852]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Almost forgot... although they didn't score the vision tetra (which I predicted they might), team 492 picked a tetra from the autoloader and scored it on a corner goal in autonomous. They then proceded to cap as many as five other goals per match -- one tetra at a time. Their record was 15-0-2, with a second consecutive PNW regional win. They had a low, fast, smooth robot that only held one tetra at a time and probably couldn't stack the third tetra on the center goal. What they could do was split the field like an NFL running back, and never fumble a tetra. NOBODY at our regional handled as well as 492. Their driving team was exceptionally skilled, too. I want to be them when I grow up.

More congrats to our down-the-road pals at Titan Robotics.

We originally had planned on capping the center goal with the vision tetra in the autonomous program, but in the end we decided not to because we were always about an inch or two off from being able to cap the center goal properly, so on the last weekend, we decided to change the autonomous to capping a corner goal. If we had another week, we would probably have been able to figure out the coding to cap it.

Our driver and arm controllers are actually both new this year (well our driver was the arm controller last year but that's another story). The key to driving really well is to start training really early in the year. Even before the game was unveiled, they had taken out our robot from last year and started to practice and practice. By the second or third week into the season, we have a basic running chassis in which they can use to practice on. If you practice often and early, your drivers can probably achieve the same effectivness as our drivers can.