Opinions: The importance of elevation/suspension

[Jamie Kalb]

Originally Posted by DinerKid

One thing that i noticed in Boston is that in finals (especially when double teamed) we were blocking a lot of shots, easily more than two in the last 20 seconds. And because we were in the defensive zone we would have had to leave the zone before the last 20 seconds to avoid contact with the other alliance if they tried to hang.

~DK

I would highly advise against a robot stationed in its own defensive zone trying to hang. This happened to us in the quarters at SVR. Our alliance stationed 846 in the defensive zone, and they did a great job of blocking shots up until that 20 second mark. Then they went to go hang. I wasn't watching them because we were in the offensive zone, pumping in balls (3129 single-handedly scored 8 points that match ). While 846 did hang successfully, I was told by our human player and another alliance member that our opponents used the opening to score 6 shots. Final score: 13 to 10, them.

If robots on your alliance are going to hang, they should not be playing goalie. They should be in the front or neutral zones.

[MagiChau]

I would say that being able to elevate is a worth while mechanism if the robot can not easily make up the 2 points of elevation. At Traverse City BOB could have possibly made it into finals if we had a working arm. We lost the deciding match of semi finals by 2 so it is debatable if we could've actually won in 4th round of semi final match.

[JamJam263]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

How did they do that while remaining elevated?

Our drivers couldn't see if they where completely clear or if there would be contact. They where too afraid of making contact in some way and damaging ourselves sine our electronics are mounted pretty close to out top.

[kenavt]

In Ann Arbor finals match 3, our two points via hanging won us the Regional, and sent us off to the Michigan State competition.

I believe the first time 1448 and 1328 hang together the final score of the match was 5-5... so they tied the match just via that.'

So, yes, IMHO hanging will be what separates good teams from great. Teams that can have others suspend off of them (Us and 1448 as far as I know) will be in great demand once they can do that consistently. One of the teams in the final game will probably have a team that can suspend someone else on the team, and that will be why they have gotten that far.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by kenavt

One of the teams in the final game will probably have a team that can suspend someone else on the team, and that will be why they have gotten that far.

I disagree, I don't think suspensions will be very common at Championships if they happen at all and I don't think there will be a single suspension on Einstein or even in the division finals

[ThirteenOfTwo]

Hanging is useful if more than one team in your alliance can do it; but if only one can then it's not really enough of a difference to be a major swing. It's harder for two teams to score four points in those twenty seconds via goals than it is for one team to score two points, because they tend to get in each others' ways.

[Tom Line]

How important is hanging? Do a little math.

On average, how many points are going to be scored per match? Then, calculate how often they'll be scored.

For instance I'd wager saying that each team scored 2-4 points per match during week one (in fact that's probably a bit high). It's pretty simple to see that hanging in that context is HUGE.

In the fourth week, there were routinely scores up in the 8-10 point range during eliminations. That 2 points might save you once or twice, but it's a lot less important.

At nationals? It may be (on average) even less important, as robots improve and scoring improves.

It's a risk vs. reward thing. Do the math on the rate of scoring, and figure out which is more important - taking the time to hang or trying to score another 2 balls. My guess is that by nationals unless you hang in under 10 seconds every single time, then mathematically it's a wash.

[rsilverstein]

You also have to take into account the availability of balls.

Let's figure that an alliance has two robots playing offense and one on defense.

There might be a point in the last 15-20 seconds of the match where they just scored a significant number of balls they control and will have to wait a while for the balls to be put back into play, controlled, and then scored. It would be much easier for the robots to then just turn around and hang on the tower.

That timing might just the difference between a finalist and winner.

While I agree that hanging will be less valuable in the Championship eliminations, as ball scoring becomes more prevalent, I think we'll definitely see it a few times.

[Radical Pi]

At philly, both alliances in finals didn't have hangers either. However, all of the hanging alliances lost in semis by very slim margins in matches that could have gone either way (we got knocked out by 1 penalty point).

For us, during qualifiers we usually won by big margins (not the best thing for QPs) and hanging turned mainly into a "seal the win" thing and also showing off to the scouters. For elims, our midfield parter, 1640, could do some decent scoring from midfield, and could jump the bump to offense, we would swap zones to go for the hang. An important factor though was 87 being able to hold down the opponent's goals and keep the score opponent score from jumping while we had no active midfield bot.

[pfreivald]

Hanging mattered a lot more to get us into the tournament (at #1 seed -- saying that never gets old!), but it didn't matter much once in the tournament itself, because the games were for the most part blowouts, with one notable exception*.

That is to say, if you look at the scores of the qualification games, only two of them were won by 2 points or less where we hung -- but the fact that we *could* hang reliably altered the strategy of our opponents, and that made the difference in a lot of games. FIRST games, just like most games, have a large psychological component, and if you can get your opponent reacting to you instead of mastering their own thing, that's a big advantge.

*In the semifinals match two, we lost 7-8, and did not hang because we had a glitch in our hanger and didn't take a time out to fix it -- so that would have been critical.

[Grim Tuesday]

1551- I saw you guys at FLR, and you have an absolutely amazing hanger. I still am not sure how it works.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

1551- I saw you guys at FLR, and you have an absolutely amazing hanger. I still am not sure how it works.

It's pretty straightforward, and came in at about 16 lbs, including a CIM.

Four-start screw (3/8" x 3'), Banebots 4:1 transmission, flexible-but-not-too-flexible shaft coupling, a thrust bearing, some aluminum tubing, some extruded aluminum and delrin sliders, some gubbins to hold it all together, two limit switches, a ratchet-like catch on the bottom, and a big ol' hook on top.

We built our robot so that everything but the mecanum drive was completely modular -- even our electronics are held on by velcro and nothing else -- and came up with five or six lift prototypes. This was the one that worked best for us, so we bolted it on top (literally).

It's a shame we never fell over, though. That righter took some effort to make just right, and we never used it. (Then again, if we fall over fast enough, we literally bounce right back to our 'feet'... Making this robot a bit like our team, come to think of it!)