MCC (Minimum competitive Concept 2015

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Monochron

I would guess that Michigan districts are particularly competitive. Adam may have been referring to earlier competitions or less competitive ones.

Actually most Michigan district events were not particularly competitive due to an influx of new teams. Most district events were about 25-30% new or 2nd year teams, and some were as high as 50% young teams (which typically are still learning how to make an effective robot). Of the 18 district events, some were pretty effective.

Now I will state that at several events can burglars brought cans over that did not end up being utilized.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by IKE

Actually most Michigan district events were not particularly competitive due to an influx of new teams. Most district events were about 25-30% new or 2nd year teams, and some were as high as 50% young teams (which typically are still learning how to make an effective robot). Of the 18 district events, some were pretty effective.

Now I will state that at several events can burglars brought cans over that did not end up being utilized.

Originally Posted by Monochron

I would guess that Michigan districts are particularly competitive. Adam may have been referring to earlier competitions or less competitive ones.

Cans from the middle were completely unnecessary at events where the two best robots together could only make 3 stacks.

There were both regionals and districts where this was the case. This might seem crazy now, but in Week 1, if your robot could consistently make one stack, you were very good. Many people don't remember that because 148, 987, and 624 competed week 1, but Dallas wasn't the only event that week.

[tr6scott]

I think TORC is MCC...
(At least on good years)

Simple elevator, tested multiple arms, from rigid flippy dogs, but stuck with articulated air, just as it seemed to have more conisistant picks. Easier to get out of trouble too when a miss-load occurred.

Omni H drive, but needed to articulate side wheel for crossing scoring platform, which required a little more design and fab, than a MCC.

Simple reliable tape measure can burglar, that never missed, grabbed one can, and getting 4 cans up on an alliance = blue banner just about anywhere.
https://youtu.be/710_8mUA-0g

We had capability of 6 high stacks, but in the first event, 5 high was fine.

Seven different automodes but almost never used them, as 2 totes, or 2 cans or 1 bot to the auto zone was still worth the same thing, nothing. . .

Built with a week to spare, host week 0 event, and drive, drive, drive. . .

But the game all came down to consistency, and that is KISS and TORC.

[AdamHeard]

Thinking on it more, I think most teams that would have been able to reliably grab two would have been picked at most events (even if it didn't make the most sense for that alliance).

[Lij2015]

I'll throw out team 4050, our third robot on our Chesapeake regional winning alliance as a minimum competitive robot, they were able to make a very simple landfill loader that lifted the edges of the totes, They were able to pretty reliably put up a stacks of five and a stack of four or five due to their drivers being particularly good at using the mechanism.

We somehow were able to pick them as the 24th robot selected as they were more consistent than some pure stackers picked before them.

And for most of elims at Chesapeake, they were working blind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtmTq_SiGnk, our finals matches

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by IKE

Assumptions are that one of the primary goals of the MCC is to play in elims (not necessarily win on Einstein), and your team has mid-pack to lower fabrication resources.

Please list your assumptions, strategy to seed high, estimate of a winning score, and what robot design elements would achieve this score.

I personally usually assume for this thread that the goal is to seed high enough to be either a Alliance Captain or a pretty early pick. I would appreciate this year if we kept towards that philosophy as opposed to getting into a KOP Robot/Cheesecaking discussion. Not that it isn't a viable concept, but I think it has been covered at length elsewhere.

Issac,
I always enjoy this thread. Our team uses the MCC approach during our strategy sessions as a baseline performance indicator to beat. However, it looks like you bumped it up a notch to increase the goal to possible alliance captain. That's our goal, but I usually assume the MCC is a sure elimination pick.

Looking at our notes just after kick-off, we assumed the following MCC features.

- Elevator robot that can handle both totes and containers
- Prefers to play at HP station
- Must be able to co-op in any combination which essentially means you can put one tote on an existing stack of 3
- Must be able to cap at least a stack of 4 totes (made by you or your alliance)
- Scoring goal: 2 four stacks with container and litter (60 points) or co-op plus one stack (70 points)

As it turned out, that version of an MCC could have been an alliance captain at some competitions. Plus, I thought this robot was fairly difficult as a minimum.

David