Should FIRST address "ramp bots"?

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[Dave Flowerday]

How is building a robot with ramps on the side any different than building a robot with 6 motors on the drivetrain? I've seen both types used to tip over other robots (in fact, I think I've seen more tipping done by robots without ramps, because those with ramps are usually playing offense, not defense).

For those teams who prefer to play offensively by manipulating the game pieces, ramps are one of the few protective measures they have against teams who prefer to play defensively and constantly push everyone around.

[Mike Ciance]

i've been pretty angry about wedges for a long time. i was actually thinking of starting a thread like this. glad to see that i'm not the only one.

nearly every year i've been involved in FIRST - 3 out of 4 - i've seen wedge robots that were built with the obvious intention of getting under other robots and pushing or flipping them.

wedges give robots a clear and unfair advantage. shouldn't a pushing match be decided by the strength of the drivetrains, rather than who makes a cheap shot?

we put a lot of work into our drivetrain. nobody could push us back... as long as we had all our wheels on the ground. on friday at nationals this year a wedgebot got under us and pushed us halfway across the field with little effort. at both of the regionals we attended we saw other teams getting pushed around by wedges.

in this game and in games of the past there have been robots with wedges that obviously have no function in the game itself. what reason is there for a wedge other than to get under other robots? wedges are just as unfair as pinning, and i can't imagine why FIRST hasn't already made rules against it.

rep me how you want, i stand by what i've said

[Greg Needel]

FIRST does not like to make rules dealing with specific robot design (look at the Q&A) i think it basically comes down to the individual team looking at the rules and the strategy they want to play. if they build a wedge bot and get DQed on intentional flipping they knew the rules when they build the bot and have to deal with them. but if they just play very effectively against you and use the advantage of the wedge then i see no reason to limit the creativity of a team's design for a problem that "might" occur once in a while. for this same reason there was never a rule on how you could pick up tetras this year

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

we put a lot of work into our drivetrain. nobody can push us back... as long as we have all our wheels on the ground. on friday at nationals this year a wedgebot got under us and pushed us halfway across the field with little effort. at both of the regionals we attended we saw other teams getting pushed around by wedges.

in this game and in games of the past there have been robots with wedges that obviously have no function in the game itself. what reason is there for a wedge other than to get under other robots? wedges are just as unfair as pinning, and i can't imagine why FIRST hasn't already made rules against it.

So you want to be able to push anybody around that you please, and you want FIRST to make a rule requiring that teams have a good pushing surface for you to make contact with?

Originally Posted by Fictional Offensive Team

we put a lot of work into our arm. nobody can score faster than us... as long as we have all our wheels on the ground. on friday at nationals this year a drivetrain-bot pushed us halfway across the field with little effort. at both of the regionals we attended we saw other teams getting pushed around by drivetrain-bots.

in this game and in games of the past there have been robots with massive drivetrains that obviously have no function in the game itself. what reason is there for a massive drivetrain other than to push other robots? drivetrain-bots are just as unfair as pinning, and i can't imagine why FIRST hasn't already made rules against it.

I imagine my slightly modified quote here sounds ridiculous to you... and that is how your statement sounds to those of us who don't put all our effort into a drivetrain.

[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.

[DarkJedi613]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

wedges give robots a clear and unfair advantage. shouldn't a pushing match be decided by the strength of the drivetrains, rather than who makes a cheap shot?

we put a lot of work into our drivetrain. nobody could push us back... as long as we had all our wheels on the ground. on friday at nationals this year a wedgebot got under us and pushed us halfway across the field with little effort. at both of the regionals we attended we saw other teams getting pushed around by wedges.

in this game and in games of the past there have been robots with wedges that obviously have no function in the game itself. what reason is there for a wedge other than to get under other robots? wedges are just as unfair as pinning, and i can't imagine why FIRST hasn't already made rules against it.

How does it give an "unfair advantage"? As long as anyone can put a "wedge" on their robot it is not unfair. I don't see how you can say that since your drive train is more powerful that someone shouldn't be allowed to create a design to deflect the force from your robot. I believe our robot was the one that pushed you across the field on Friday. We designed the front and back of our robot as a sloped angel (I think 48 degrees from the base) for the sole reason of deflecting force. Last year we had some robot ram us and damage parts of our frame, by putting a sloped front on the robot a portion of the momentum of a robot is pushed up off the frame, and the rest is spread out throughout the entire frame instead of having two bars on the back take all the force (and most likely bend or break). If we had designed it to flip you, you would have been flipped, but instead we just pushed you back so that we could get to our loading zone.

I agree that the problem is not in the robots, but in the way they are driven.

[Evan Austin]

I see no problem with a ramp bot and if I was worried about other teams having them I would try and figure out some way to work around it. I think it can be a good thing because, as other people in this thread have said, it reduces the force acting against the robot. In years past I have seen robots get severely damaged from taking a hard hit. If the ramp can help reduce these forces, I would be in favor due to the decrease in damage to the driveline and other parts of the robot.

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

i've been pretty angry about wedges for a long time. ...
wedges give robots a clear and unfair advantage. shouldn't a pushing match be decided by the strength of the drivetrains, rather than who makes a cheap shot?

we put a lot of work into our drivetrain. nobody could push us back... as long as we had all our wheels on the ground. ... what reason is there for a wedge other than to get under other robots?

The main reason teams design wedges or wings on their robots is to provide themself a defense against a team who is ramming them. Many teams, including yours, rammed other teams in 2003. This was done to knock other teams from the HDPE platform during Stack Attack gameplay. Some teams rammed in 2004. Seeing teams make ramps or wedges on their robots is simply a passive defense against aggressive drivers who like to use their robot's momentum as a tool to play defense.

Now, if a ramp or wedge is used to get under another robot and continue to drive into them until they are flipped, then that is an illegal use of a ramp, imo.

Andy B.