Over the bump or under the tower

[JesseK]

Over the bumps. Conquer them like they're flat!

[wilsonmw04]

The best answer is both. I don't see the tower and the bumps as being mutually exclusive.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by yodameister

Then based on your quote, you should design to do both as there may be times when you want/need to go through the tunnel.

That's what I originally intended to mean, I guessed I assumed that the OP would've also kept in the feature to go under the tunnel.

You know what they say about assuming things....

[Donut]

We're strongly considering both, but I voted the tunnel option just so the battle looks a little less lopsided for this poll

I do not believe these options are mutually exclusive and as mentioned because of the ease in blocking tunnels it is almost a necessity that a tunnel bot can climb the bump as well. That said consider that defense played on you while crossing the bump may actually be worse, since an opponent hitting you as you come over is likely to cause a flip, the only advantage is that the bump provides much more room to try to avoid them on the other side.

The tunnel is a good option for simplicity (though keeping a robot under 17" provides its own challenge) and it is significantly easier to move balls through the tunnel than the bump. Defense is easier to play on the platform but from a blocking position the opposing robot (depending on the zone) can do little other than continue to block (center field probably provides the worst shot to either goal in an alliance's home zone, and in the opponent's zone you can't defend many shots from the center either). Although easier I'm not convinced that blocking the tunnel will be very high on any alliance's priority list unless your robot can single-handedly outscore their entire alliance given the chance.

[Chris is me]

Something to consider also is a robot low enough for the tunnel is a robot probably with a low enough CoG for the bump.

[czeke]

Our team, after thinking about it, for a long time, came to the conclusion that the tunnel is a death trap. At any time an opposition robot can block
the entrance, block and/or jam itself in the inside, or you yourself could be trapped inside by opposition robots at both entrances. We'll be opting to figure out how best to cross over the bump.

[midway78224]

Our team is going with going over the bump with the strategy we want to pull off. Its not possible to go under our mechanism wont work or fold far enough.

[CaptainMorton]

i dont think you need to necessarily go with either choice unless you are starting in the farthest position.

all you need to do is feed balls to your players in other areas and get to the tower in the end

but then again, its all up to the strategy that you choose to follow

[Liu_yiang]

While going through the tunnel may be faster, it is prone to blocking and any attempt at hanging is very very hard. Not to mention tunnels put even more size restrictions than the restrictions themselves.

[TheWhiteReaper]

My team is deciding that we don't WANT to go over bumps but if we HAVE to (in the event of an allied robot being disabled) you should BE ABLE TO. Our drive train will allow us to go over but we will ONLY if we have to.

[jgannon]

For those designing to go under the tunnel, how are you dealing with the consequent visibility issues?

Originally Posted by czeke

you yourself could be trapped inside by opposition robots at both entrances

Is that actually a bad thing? If your opponents use two robots to shut down one, the rest of your alliance has a whole lot of field to work with.

[quinxorin]

Thank you. Our team has decided that "Over the hills" is a much better way to reach Grandmother's house than to go "through the woods."

I hope that this thread helps other teams make thier decisions as well. A bit of information: based on our calculations assuming 6" wheels spread pretty much the farthest they could be, the CoG, if in the center, can be up to 36" high.

p.s. We also decided to go with a mecanum drive, just in case you were interested.

[Who?]

Originally Posted by quinxorin

I would like the community's oppinion on whether a robot should go over the bump or under the tower. My team is almost completeley split between the two options.

build a bot that can do both, because when you want to go over the bump you will have to account for center of gravity, a 45 degree angle is quite a steep one, today we built a mock up robot out of 2x4s with 120lbs. on it and found that it is in fact very easy to tip over, so when you built a robot to go over you will have to keep the center of gravity low and might as well just make it short enough to go under as well.

[Krisple]

We came up with a little list at 1712, which is by no means complete, but i thought would be nice to share.

over
pro
quick
can't be blocked
con
robot gets damaged
risk of flipping if center of gravity isn't low
can't control ball over

under
pro
can control balls well
low risk of damage
con
takes a while to line up to go under
can easily be blocked
risk of balls falling on you and getting stuck
restricts robot size

We decided to go with over as the initial strategy, but in order to get a low center of gravity we ended up building a chassis that could also fit under if we needed to. Kinda funny how things work out sometimes.

I thought both was the best strategy, but would pick over if I had to pick just one.

[Alexis Howell]

I'd say neither as well. I mean, why would you really need to traverse? Two robots aren't allowed in the opposing area and it seems that you'd probably need a robot manning all sections...

Traversing would probably only be necessary in a worst case scenario...