RACK & ROLL Reaction

[darkember]

Originally Posted by Billfred

That's far too broad a statement to be making. Lots of six-foot robots climbed the ramp in 2006, which was far steeper than teams have to make theirs this year.

but what if the ramb is steep and the robots center of gravity is above the center of the robot. Also, you wont have as good of a traction going up the ramp.

[DanDon]

Originally Posted by Billfred

That's far too broad a statement to be making. Lots of six-foot robots climbed the ramp in 2006, which was far steeper than teams have to make theirs this year.

If I recall correctly, last year's height limit was 5ft.

[edit]

Darkember: that all depends on the robot's drivetrain, and the way the robot with the ramp builds it.

[/edit]

[darkember]

This year they are letting you go up to six feet but the robot has to be under 100 pounds.

[Pavan Dave]

A mentor on my team called the game a few days ago. He said inner tubes with something like tic-tac-toe or something. Also I do not like the game much. I have seen footages from previous robots from previous years that have been able to do this mission. (I Speculate that they have been able to do this mission because I have yet to see it for myself, but the idea in my opinion is a combination of old ones.) I hoped that FIRST had something a bit more challenging and maybe had thought of something that does not combine past ideas. Other organizations can do it, and first even has 6-7 months to think about what they want to do too.

I am dissatisfied very much with this game.

Pavan.

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by Ken Leung

Two words: Wildstang 2001

Yes! Definitely the 2001 Widlstang.

I just pulled the video out of my archives of wildstang executing the perfect ramp maneuver.

Back to the topic-
This years Rack & Roll...... (after more than 6 hours of thinking)...
I LIKE IT!
It is going to be FUN.

Now, I have to find a team to do my biddings! Ma ha ha.

[eshteyn]

Originally Posted by darkember

This year they are letting you go up to six feet but the robot has to be under 100 pounds.

It does not matter what the weight of the robot is as if its center of gravity is high it may fall if it tries to go up a ramp at a high speed.

[darkember]

i said that earlier

[Pavan Dave]

very true....CG is very important when people are considering ramps on their robot.

Pavan.

[Squirrel Lord]

Originally Posted by pyroslev

(Looks away from the monitor the rule book)


I love the rule that you can only carry one, can't push during it and such. It's one of those things that will prove interesting on the field.

Add in the USB and it will prove interesting as to what we see.

Scoring seems rather simple.

Blue Tooth Wii-Mote anyone? Hook it up and away you go...

This will not be all about speed, mainly because the rack will be moving far too much not to stop and aim. One of our coaches saw a rig and it could not stay still enough to fire onto or to just quickly deposit. Plus the idea that you cannot place the Spoilers on the Keepers or that you can lock up a leg with a Spoiler then a ringer makes the game very strategy oriented. The programing team is going to have fun with the autonomous mode.

I am very happy with this years game, it has so many strategies!

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by ZeetherKID77

Anyone notice in the animation how they reused robots from animations before? That six-wheeled robot seems to be in EVERY animation EVERY year.

Yep. I think we should start a (fake) rule that Dave can't reuse previous year's robots as we can't in the games.

Originally Posted by Tetraman

My thoughts? This game is boring. (read carefully to get my point please)

Where is the innovation that the past three years had in their design? First Frenzy gave us all multiple directions we could have taken our robot and the way the alliance worked in combination won the game. Triple Play introduced a new game piece, alliance structure, and a look into how we can manipulate it. Aim High took the boring ball and gave us a new system to use it with. Also there were periods and a critical auto-mode. I see nothing to go overly ballistic about, other than robot stacking.

I'm predicting that the robot design results are going to end up like Triple Play robots, where a vast majority of all them are going to look/act alike. It will all boil down to who's robot is faster. To me thats rather dull.

Now, I see game play as a different story. I can say I expect to see really fun matches, team working alliances, and crazy point totals. But the game, how it works, and how you win, is rather boring to me.

Seeing the field in person changes that. Trust me. I thought it was like a normal coat rack at first and kinda had the same reaction (actually I thought the whole thing spun around - silly me), but I will post some video later I took of the whole thing moving around with one simple nudge into a diamond plate piece.
Movement of the scoring SPIDER LEGS will be interesting to overcome.

Originally Posted by DCA Fan

My first reaction when I saw the rack was "holy hell."

Indeed.

Originally Posted by Dan Kramer

OK - so this is probably in the manual, but I'll ask anyway.

do the end of match 'elevated robot bonus points' mean one alliance member is not scoring, in that the other robots must be on top of, or suspended by, this robot <someone must be touching the ground, right?>

Uhh.. suuuree. .

Originally Posted by lukevanoort

This was one of my reactions too, but then it occurred to me that these innertubes appear very light, thus the arms can be quite light, hence the average center of gravity isn't going to necessarily be as high, say, last year or the year before where many robots either had a heavy shooter high up or a heavy arm with one or more heavy game pieces high up.

Appearences are sometimes incorrect, but not this time. They are in fact very light (less than soccer balls of the past and waaaaay lighter than tetras) This is probably the lightest game element I have seen (member since 2001).

As far as durability, over a course of a regional they will become beat up and pop yes.. one KEEPER lost it's life today at the Manchester kickoff already.

BUT, the good news is they are very thick walled inner tubes as fas as being pool quality. They are no high quality truck inner tubes, but are pretty durable none-the-less.

Originally Posted by Spiffizzle

See, I took a child-like view to my first look at the game... the rack looked like a fun jungle gym

Indeed.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by dhoizner

If I recall correctly, last year's height limit was 5ft.

[edit]

Darkember: that all depends on the robot's drivetrain, and the way the robot with the ramp builds it.

[/edit]

You're right--my brain just clocked out at 1:00 today. (This is what happens when you stay up until midnight the night before, then wake up at 6:15 to get ready for presenting at your local Kickoff.)

Originally Posted by eshteyn

It does not matter what the weight of the robot is as if its center of gravity is high it may fall if it tries to go up a ramp at a high speed.

Originally Posted by darkember

but what if the ramb is steep and the robots center of gravity is above the center of the robot. Also, you wont have as good of a traction going up the ramp.

Again, generalizations. Many things are possible in FRC, just with trade-offs of various sorts. It just takes thought and planning.

[Kim Masi]

Why does everyone keep saying tic-tac-toe? My immediate reaction was connect four. Except this is more like connect 24!

At first I really wasn't a fan of the game. But now that I've given it a chance and read through the rules carefully, I think it will be a lot of fun and exciting!

[Beth Sweet]

Well, I'm still trying to decide whether I like this game or not. I think that it's going to be really tough on the rookies because to compete, they're really going to have to design some sort of an arm. I know our rookie year was tetras and we really had a difficult time. I think we capped one tetra the entire competition...

I'm also a bit concerned about the number of things to do. Everyone is doing one thing, putting on innertubes. I'm not sure I like that, I kinda enjoyed last year's variety.

Also, I'm exceptionally concerned that we will not be able to build a rack. That thing was pretty tall at the kickoff and frankly, I don't think the high school has ceilings that high. Where are we going to put it, where could we store it? Maybe our team is the only one with that issue, but it exists.

Like it or not, I would like to thank the GDC for working their posteriors off to make us a great game.

[Tetraman]

Now wait...if you make a 110 pount robot, it HAS to be between 4 and 5 feet?

[DanDon]

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

Well, I'm still trying to decide whether I like this game or not. I think that it's going to be really tough on the rookies because to compete, they're really going to have to design some sort of an arm. I know our rookie year was tetras and we really had a difficult time. I think we capped one tetra the entire competition...

I'm also a bit concerned about the number of things to do. Everyone is doing one thing, putting on innertubes. I'm not sure I like that, I kinda enjoyed last year's variety.

Also, I'm exceptionally concerned that we will not be able to build a rack. That thing was pretty tall at the kickoff and frankly, I don't think the high school has ceilings that high. Where are we going to put it, where could we store it? Maybe our team is the only one with that issue, but it exists.

Like it or not, I would like to thank the GDC for working their posteriors off to make us a great game.

We also have that problem. Our shop ceilings are around 8.5 feet tall. The only place we can store something like this is in a gym, and even then we need to schedule time to use it.

One thing about the rack, the talles spider is 7 feet 8 inches off the ground, which just gives you enough room for that. But if you want to use the vision system and targets, you need the 10 feet.

/dan