2011 Mini-bot?

[Grim Tuesday]

I agree with Tetraman, FTC parts only seems a bit silly.

The only issue I forsee with minibots is them being worth too much. If a team can win the minibot race, they are almost guaranteed the win.

[Bjenks548]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

The only issue I forsee with minibots is them being worth too much. If a team can win the minibot race, they are almost guaranteed the win.

I don't think this is true, it is only a bonus round. Assume your alliance does win the first two positions in the race 50 pts (30+20) the other team still gets (assuming they have working minibots) 25 pts (15+10) meaning its only a 25 pt swing. Also assuming the perfects score, a Logo on the top row with ubertubes under each part is worth 36 pts... I think

[EricH]

2 comments:

1) FTC parts are not the only legal items.
2) Who says tubes and minibots are mutually exclusive? It ought to be possible to fire a minibot, grab a tube, and get it in place before the match ends.

[cbeavers6790]

yep we are going for it
scoring a tube within that time would not be easy and the minibot has the potential to get a lot more points

[Josh Fox]

Originally Posted by EricH

It ought to be possible to fire a minibot, grab a tube, and get it in place before the match ends.

I agree with this point 110%

If you want to win yourself a championship, then you better not plan on sitting around for 10 seconds and watching what happens.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by cooldude8181

and why would you choose this option instead of playing the tubes?

We think we can score 30 points faster than by hanging tubes. That's why.

[SashaKuznetsov]

I think some people are missing that the End Game is 10 seconds and you ONLY have that time for deploying. If you so much as touch the tower with your minibot, it's a dead tower.

<G17> HOSTBOTS may not DEPLOY a MINIBOT. Violation: TOWER is disabled.

DEPLOYMENT – the act of positioning a MINIBOT on a TOWER. DEPLOYMENT starts when the MINIBOT breaks the vertical projection of the TOWER BASE circumference during the END GAME. (Related form, DEPLOY, verb)

So it becomes, can you build a system and minibot that deploy and climb in 10 seconds (3-5, prefferably)? If so, which I believe is possible, it's definitely worth it.

[Waffles]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I agree with Tetraman, FTC parts only seems a bit silly.

The only issue I forsee with minibots is them being worth too much. If a team can win the minibot race, they are almost guaranteed the win.

Minibots play a huge part in adding a bonus to a team's score. I like to say that the end game period is like icing on the cake.

I mean, just to put this out there:

Say an alliance scores one ubertube in the automode.

Assuming that the alliance completes a logo with that row, you get 30pts already.

Having said that, it's just as an equivalent for a team or alliance all together to complete that logo set.

There's a ton of possibilities as far as point values for the equivalency of ubertubes, additional placements, logos and the minibot go.

In conclusion though, my initial thought is that the Minibot shouldn't be the SOLE focus of a team's robot design, because while YES completing the task gives you big points, something like this could happen:

The opposing alliance could starve out the alliance that relies on minibot action by collecting several game pieces and hording them in their designated zones where no long accessible.

At that point, there and then, you're stuck with just the points from the minibot plus whatever scoring piece you can maintain.

I guess in conclusion before I blabber more about strategy, minibot scores can be overcome when the game is played right (just like with finals last year when 469 got beat out with a good game play and bend of rules via loopholes!)

I strongly believe that robots can be built to fulfill both tasks though (and we will probably see it)

[Jack Jones]

The real big question is, how many teams will be able to scrounge enough legal parts to build one? What if FTC isn't big or doesn't even exist in your area. Check out Lego Educational - kits are out of stock.

[TD912]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

The real big question is, how many teams will be able to scrounge enough legal parts to build one? What if FTC isn't big or doesn't even exist in your area. Check out Lego Educational - kits are out of stock.

I thought the new FIRST Choice system had free FTC kits?

I don't have a Choice login name so I can't check right now.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by TD912

I thought the new FIRST Choice system had free FTC kits?

I don't have a Choice login name so I can't check right now.

I wonder how many and how long they'll last with first come first serve.

[Radical Pi]

I'd just like to point out that amidst all of the minibots climbing, each alliance will still have at least one robot that is not involved in minibots which can continue to score tubes. Plus once the two minibots start climbing the hostbots can go in for scores.

[1631JD]

If one continues to score tubes, there is a chance for penalty due to inadvertent contact which must be taken into consideration.

[JJ Hoo]

To be honest, something to be considered is that in all reality, we can guess how many points can be scored from the tubes/ubertubes, but like in previous competitions, we don't really know a range of how much will be scored. On the other hand, being successful in the endgame has a set number of points, which teams can test during build season. Even though you can't know whether your minibot will be fastest or slowest, i still think being able to finish the endgame will be extremely advantageous

[mcrawford]

When st. louis comes around the best robots will have minibots and mechanisms to score tubes because this game is "unbreakable" unlike last year.