Announcing the 2013 December Design Competition

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by MichaelBick

I don't find this competition to be all about developing strategy. I think it will also help our CAD team work better together and faster.

All design in FRC is (should be) strategy driven. If you're not thinking about strategy when designing something for this competition, you're not really practicing the essential skills you'll need to have finely polished in 30 days.

This game is challenging, the manual is hard to understand, and a lot of the challenges have some annoying constraints / features that make them quite hard to achieve. But something will probably work. Now is a good time to practice the use of center of mass analysis, material properties, etc. in order to design a robot that is able to complete the game task with any semblance of stability.

In short, sure you could just say "this is a design challenge" and skip finding an optimal strategy, but why miss out on all aspects of the experience?

I would say the asymmetric field is a big problem of the game design, particularly the location of the limbo bar (I think just removing this would fix a lot of the game). However, it's not like FRC games don't have big flaws to design around as well.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Can the Alliance Crate be scored in any of the alliance's 4 scoring areas? So if I place it in either the Low or High Goal in the middle, it doubles the crates in that quadrant. If I place it on the Shelf, it doubles the crates on the shelf. If I place it in my protected zone, it doubles whatever stack I may have in my protected zone. Same goes for halving the other alliance's crates.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

All design in FRC is (should be) strategy driven. If you're not thinking about strategy when designing something for this competition, you're not really practicing the essential skills you'll need to have finely polished in 30 days.

I do agree that strategy is important and that if you plan to enter you should be practicing these skills. However, I don't feel that the competition is "aimless" if you don't focus on strategy. Any and all practice is good practice.

[TheFrozenSlink]

Is it legal to take blocks out of opposing alliance scoring zones, and is it the same for the alliance block?
Also what is an "anti mecanum" floor?
What exactly is this shelf for?

Is it okay if I Frankenstein previous robots together rather than make everything from scratch, (IE drivetrain)...would you even notice ?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by TheFrozenSlink

Is it legal to take blocks out of opposing alliance scoring zones, and is it the same for the alliance block?

Yes, in any zone except the protected zone.

Also what is an "anti mecanum" floor?

A bad joke. It's carpet.

What exactly is this shelf for?

It is the high goal. Crates scored on the shelf get 4 points each in teleop.

[JosephC]

Originally Posted by ehfeinberg

A design is only as good as the strategy it executes.

And I would go even farther to say that all designs (for the same strategy) are equal in FRC. The only difference is how well a team executes a design. A team who does a simple task very well will do much better than a team who does a complicated task not too well.

So I would say that aimlessly designing robots is a useless task if you do not account for how your design accomplishes your strategy.

I'm not saying that strategy isn't an important role, because I know for a fact it is. All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter if one side is biased or not. If this was actual FRC game is would be a huge issue, but since we're CADing robot and not actually competing with them, it doesn't matter how biased the field is towards certain alliances. You could design a 29" high robot that scores in the 2 pt goals, and state in your strategy brief that it goes the fastest way possible depending on which alliance your on.

Originally Posted by compwiztobe

Can the Alliance Crate be scored in any of the alliance's 4 scoring areas? So if I place it in either the Low or High Goal in the middle, it doubles the crates in that quadrant. If I place it on the Shelf, it doubles the crates on the shelf. If I place it in my protected zone, it doubles whatever stack I may have in my protected zone. Same goes for halving the other alliance's crates.

You are correct.

To those saying the red alliance has a huge advantage over the blue alliance, remember this game isn't actually going to be played. Because of this factor, it's up to you how you design your strategy, and our judges will be looking at that.

If you feel the red alliance has a significant advantage that will greatly affect your design, then put yourself on the red alliance if it makes you happy. Go ahead, we'll let you choose your alliance!

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

This game is challenging, the manual is hard to understand, and a lot of the challenges have some annoying constraints / features that make them quite hard to achieve.

Hey, that sounds familiar!

[Whippet]

Just thought I'd post a little teaser for what's to come:

(Does not contain actual manipulator, just drivetrain and electronics board)

P.S. I think that we will be able to tell what subteam everyone is on based on how much space they leave for electronics in their design.

[TheFrozenSlink]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

It is the high goal. Crates scored on the shelf get 4 points each in teleop.

I meant the self in the middle by the scoring tubs, I shouldve been clearer my bad.

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by TheFrozenSlink

I meant the self in the middle by the scoring tubs, I shouldve been clearer my bad.

The "overpass" is simply there to encourage shorter robot designs, as quite a bit of time is saved by driving under the overpass rather than around the tank.

[BrendanB]

Small teaser from the robot I am working on. I have been collaborating with one of our students who is much further ahead compared to me.

We were both designing Logomotion robots to practice CADing a full robot when this game was announced so we decided to move to this project as it was more challenging since it was a fresh game.

Thanks to the group who decided to put this together. This has been quite the challenge and I can't wait to see what we end up with. Great practice for 2014!

And now, I'll leave you with this.

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Small teaser from the robot I am working on. I have been collaborating with one of our students who is much further ahead compared to me.

We were both designing Logomotion robots to practice CADing a full robot when the challenge was announced so we decided to move to this project as it was more challenging since it was fresh game.

Thanks to the group who decided to put this together. This has been quite the challenge and I can't wait to see what we end up with. Great practice for 2014!

And now, I'll leave you with this.

Wow, that's a cool design! Am I correct in thinking that it dumps large quantities of crates in the large tank from that tube?

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Whippet

Wow, that's a cool design! Am I correct in thinking that it dumps large quantities of crates in the large tank from that tube?

Possibly.

Although I can't confirm what the end manipulator will do/look like.