Attempting the Bonus Round

[bensherman]

We're having a debate today on our strategy in the bonus round. We're wondering if we're going to lift our bot up, hang off another bot, or have a bot latch onto ours while hanging. What are your teams planning on doing in the finale for bonus points?

[viperred396]

Were doing something different where we are going to help the teams that don’t plan on doing anything by having our bot turn into a ramp so they can get to the platform and score the points

[bensherman]

Originally Posted by viperred396

Were doing something different where we are going to help the teams that don’t plan on doing anything by having our bot turn into a ramp so they can get to the platform and score the points

That's a very interesting concept. We're almost definately going with a concept that allows for out bot to pull up onto the tower and allow another bot to connect to us.

[Chadius012]

Our team is possibly going to have a robot that can fold down platforms for alliance robots to drive onto, then lift all three robots at the same time.

[antoineft]

Originally Posted by Chadius012

Our team is possibly going to have a robot that can fold down platforms for alliance robots to drive onto, then lift all three robots at the same time.

One thing I'm wondering is how secure the tower is? If you hang 3 robots off one side of the tower (approx. 450 lbs) will the tower hold up or tip over? I'm pretty sure they never lag anything to the floor at first events right?

Anyone get up close and personal with an official field and get to feel the rigidity of the tower?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by antoineft

One thing I'm wondering is how secure the tower is? If you hang 3 robots off one side of the tower (approx. 450 lbs) will the tower hold up or tip over? I'm pretty sure they never lag anything to the floor at first events right?

It's probably going to be velcroed down like the rest of the field. That's industrial-strength velcro, too. There's also some form of cable running back to the player station, along with the ball return. I don't think that tower's going much of anywhere...

[Are Jay]

Our team is hoping that we could possibly do hang from it and have another robot hang from us but if we do not accomplish this then I'm not sure what we would do.....

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by antoineft

Anyone get up close and personal with an official field and get to feel the rigidity of the tower?

The tower at the FIRST kickoff had metal (presumably even steel) plates underneath the carpet, plenty of people hung off it themselves, it shook the rails a little bit, but its not going anywhere. My guess is with the "hang off another robot" rules, they intended it to happen.

[MrForbes]

download the Game Specific field drawings, study them for an hour or two, and see how the real tower is built.

http://usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/....aspx?id=16097

[Jakub]

One thing that is worth considering in all of this is the stability of the robot that is "on top" by that i mean the robot being hung off of. If the robot hanging directly on the tower is not secure and stable, and a robot tries to hang on it, you risk both robots falling. Possibly one on top of another, which could be disastrous.

[star_lancer]

Originally Posted by Chadius012

Our team is possibly going to have a robot that can fold down platforms for alliance robots to drive onto, then lift all three robots at the same time.

I'd love to be on the alliance of anybody with an idea like this. Even though our team has figured that we could likely score more points in those twenty seconds by shooting than by using the tower.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Chadius012

Our team is possibly going to have a robot that can fold down platforms for alliance robots to drive onto, then lift all three robots at the same time.

make sure you understand the definitions of SUSPENDED and ELEVATED

[bensherman]

Originally Posted by squirrel

make sure you understand the definitions of SUSPENDED and ELEVATED

I agree. I think some teams aren't understanding the the robot has to be off the ground rather than touching the bar and the ground at the same time through a lifting system.

[MFennig8]

See, what I have heard from some teams about a ramp idea, then also picking up multiple robots. We do have to remember that we can get the 2 bonus points for bots that hang higher than the platform or that are sitting on the platform. The one for 3 bonus points, you can not build a ramp unless your robot is hanging and is above 20" (the height of the platform). Thats where the catch comes into play. I thought about why not doing a lift up ramp like in 07", but the catch we have is that if we place 2 robots on the platform, our robot can not be holding them up at all because then the one that we are under and our ramp is holding up will not count.

[viperred396]

Originally Posted by MFennig8

See, what I have heard from some teams about a ramp idea, then also picking up multiple robots. We do have to remember that we can get the 2 bonus points for bots that hang higher than the platform or that are sitting on the platform. The one for 3 bonus points, you can not build a ramp unless your robot is hanging and is above 20" (the height of the platform). Thats where the catch comes into play. I thought about why not doing a lift up ramp like in 07", but the catch we have is that if we place 2 robots on the platform, our robot can not be holding them up at all because then the one that we are under and our ramp is holding up will not count.

For our ramp bot we were not planing on scoring the 2 point bonus for being ELEVATED (because we will be on the ground) but we can help our alliance by letting them drive on our "ramp bot" so they can score as ELEVATED