Should FIRST address "ramp bots"?

[MattB703]

The only thing that concerns me about that approach is that the ref needs to decide if a robot is pushing or not.

[abeD]

Originally Posted by MattB703

The only thing that concerns me about that approach is that the ref needs to decide if a robot is pushing or not.

You bring up a good point...but sooner or later at some point in almost every match a ref will have to make a decision. This is almost inevitable.

[Beth Sweet]

We had a "ramp bot" this year. We called it "offensive defense." Basically, our idea was that we were going to use GP on the field (as expected) and not drive up to a robot to flip them. Our ramp was so that if we were trying to cap and another machine tried to play defense on us, that all that they could do was to drive up on us and give us a little extra weight to help out our CG. We foresaw a number of machines this year going defensive and decided that we had to protect ourselves. We aren't going to go and attack another machine with it, but you had better bet that if we get attacked while playing our game that we will defend ourselves.

[Kevin Sevcik]

To those that are annoyed with not being able to push around ramp-bots: This is the whole point. The people designing ramp-bots don't want to be pushed around, and have taken steps to ensure this. If you feel it is utterly necessary to your strategy to push them, then by all means engineer yourself a solution to the problem. I've thought about it for about an hour total and already have two possible solutions for a pushing robot to defeat a wedge. They would have the added advantage of making your robot less tippable from things getting under it anyways.

[petek]

I still maintain it is the robot driver's and referee's actions which should be dealt with, not the physical design of the robot. This year's game may have emphasized the issue because of high CGs.

The problem I saw this year was inconsistent refereeing. Between regionals and even between ends of the field at Atlanta, I saw cases where blatant battlebot defense resulted in robots being tipping without penalty, contrasted with robots being penalized when another robot fell over after running into them (where the penalized team was clearly blameless from my perspective).

To me, this says that FIRST needs to do a better job of making the rules clear and ensuring that the referees fully understand the letter and intent of those rules.

[Greg Marra]

This is an issue that could be addressed in game design. It seems to me that a robot with sloped sides would have trouble getting onto a raised platform; ala the 2004 game.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by MattB703

One thing to consider is that outriggers don't necessarily need to have sloped sides.

Why? Sloping the sides directs the down forces to a higher part of the robot and significantly reduces weight.

[Padfoot Black]

FIRST needs to look at it case by case, they should allow the wedge type robots, but when a team uses it with the intent to flip another robot, it needs to be fixed. During one of our Archimedes matches, we were playing defense on a team (they will remain nameless) who had a wedge type design, my driver knew he could flip himself and did everything not to. But when we were at the perfect angle with the wedge, the other teams driver pushed us into the loading zone,we drove in reverse to try and stop him, he then watched our robot tip up a little and then backed up a lfew feet, and drove straight into us and flipped us into thier loading zone. FIRST disqualifyed the team from that match, I feel it was the right call, but next year first needs to discover these designs in the regionals, and make sure teams know that they cannot use them to flip another bot.

[Ken Patton]

Originally Posted by Padfoot Black

During one of our Archimedes matches, we were playing defense on a team (they will remain nameless) who had a wedge type design, my driver knew he could flip himself and did everything not to. But when we were at the perfect angle with the wedge, the other teams driver pushed us into the loading zone,we drove in reverse to try and stop him, he then watched our robot tip up a little and then backed up a lfew feet, and drove straight into us and flipped us into thier loading zone. FIRST disqualifyed the team from that match, I feel it was the right call, but next year first needs to discover these designs in the regionals, and make sure teams know that they cannot use them to flip another bot.

Hmm.

I was coaching the other team. From my vantage point, you guys drove up on us (well onto the wedge), and we chose to drive forward. My intent was to get us to touch the LZ with you perched on top of us. I never saw you try to avoid the contact by driving in reverse (that would have put you in our loading zone and drawn a 30 pointer). We certainly never backed up. We went too far by pushing after you hit the field border - you tipped (right into the border, not into the LZ), and we (rightfully) got shut off.

In hockey terms, we tried to pull a Fedorov (taking a fall to get a call) but ended up pulling a Probert. We learned our lesson.

Ken

[Brandon Holley]

Our team (11) used wedges for the first time this year, and we are sure glad that we did.

Our wedges were actually a controversial topic around week 5ish. Some of you might remember we have the aluminum "picture frame" wedges. They turned out to work great. The way we designed them, there was a good 3/4" pushing surface before the wedge started. Our wedges were one of our greater parts of the robot this year. I know many teams have had bad experiences with wedges, but they have to understand that the wedges dont come without sacrafice...

After week 1, at EVERY SINGLE drivers meeting, the topic of wedges was brought up. We learned real quick that we had to be careful with our as some people saw them "tipping weapons". The truth is that the few times we had to flex our drive train muscle, the wedges gave us the advantage we needed. A couple of robots were flipped, but none of them because we drove into them and they flipped. Other teams pushed them into us, they hit us at a high rate of speed...etc.

A note to the teams who are disgruntled about wedges...If you really can't stand them being used against you, why dont you try using them yourselves?

[MattB703]

Originally Posted by MORT~11

A note to the teams who are disgruntled about wedges...If you really can't stand them being used against you, why dont you try using them yourselves?

I intend to. I wanted to see what the community thought. I'd prefer no wedge bots, but if there is no rule against it next year we will have sloped sides added to our bot.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by MORT~11

A note to the teams who are disgruntled about wedges...If you really can't stand them being used against you, why dont you try using them yourselves?

That puts us in what is more or less an arm's race, but with wedges. Who can make the best wedges without becoming a hazard to breaking the rules. If all the teams start using wedges to avoid being tipped by wedges, whats the point of them in the first place? At that point, why not just say no wedges?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Padfoot Black

...next year first needs to discover these designs in the regionals, and make sure teams know that they cannot use them to flip another bot.

Teams should already have known that from Kickoff day.

Originally Posted by <G25>

Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not in the spirit of FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed.

[Rich Kressly]

Any robot in any configuration can be used in the "wrong" way. It's a difficult thing to do, but you need to walk a mile in another team's shoes before deciding a particular design is always bad. Teams like 111, who have proven track records, get a lot of "attention" from opposing robots on the field. Designing ways to deflect force away from the robot so it can still move around and perform tasks is smart in my estimation. This is vastly different than a robot designed only as a wedge (that can perform no other offensive task) or a team that uses sloped sides to "attack" another robot.

I'm not concerned with too many flipped robots at all. This is the third straight year I've seen a significant amount of bots with sloped sides and each year I've seen fewer flipped robots than the year before. In 2003, with that ramp on the field, seeing capsized robots (even in autonomous) was much more common than what I saw this year. I've also seen teams that have been able to use arms/appendages to get back up after falling over. Some of these occurances have been some of the most exciting matches I've seen.

[BillP]

I think that the ref's at Nationals did an excellent job of addressing this whole issue at the driver's meeting before the competition. They stressed that "ramp-bot" drivers need to be very careful because they would be scrutinizing very carefully the actions of any robot with sloped sides. Their basic opinion was that sloped sides are not (currently) against the rules, but intentionally tipping another robot was. Because of this, the seemingly innocent actions of a slope-sided robot could easily be interpreted along the same lines as ramming or pushing high on another robot.

There were several excellent robots with sloped sides in Archimedes (980 comes to mind), that never had any problems because of the skill and care of their drivers. In a nutshell, the ref's defused the entire situation before it even started.

OK, now to answer the question: There should be no rules limiting the slope on the sides or robots (IMHO).