Is Stronghold the roughest game yet?

[kuraikou]

In 2014, the impacts were mostly in the bumper area from defense, as most teams had intakes that went over the large ball and folded back into the robot to protect them.

This year however, many intakes are lower to go under the low bar, and pick up the small balls, making for mechanisms that occasionally slam into defenses and the floor when crossing. There's also a lot of impact load on the drivetrain from repetitively slamming into the ground with 120-pounds of robot which causes problems with some drivetrains.

So I would say this year is much worse for robot damage.

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by kuraikou

There's also a lot of impact load on the drivetrain from repetitively slamming into the ground with 120-pounds of robot which causes problems with some drivetrains.

So I would say this year is much worse for robot damage.

Yes, In my opinion bots were hurt much more slamming into the ground than other bots. Our bot caught huge air over the rockwall and chevaldefrise, if we had put our 2014 bot through that same stress, the drive train would have just shattered.

[logank013]

I'd say if you don't see hard robot to robot action at your events, you may want to look at some IN competitions sometime. Lots of hard defense in IN this year resulting in 2 red cards and some really heart breaking robot failures. Not sure if any teams have hurt feelings for other teams though. Everyone in IN seems to like each other. Anyway, the big surprise is that a huge amount of the robot to robot hits have been in the neutral zone. Lots of boulder fights and lots of trying to slow cycle times. This robot to robot roughness doesn't happen too much in quals but has definitely happened in elims a lot.

[Hikel team 319]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Accompanied by a shot of poor Dozer having something fall on him and breaking as a result. I miss Dozer!

Dozer is back this year. Check out the 1:00 mark of 319's reveal video. You can also see us in St. Louis this year.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D9aeWRQLmUY&autoplay=1

[BeardyMentor]

Originally Posted by AWoL

I would tend to disagree; over the past couple days at MAR Champs we got into many tough fights for boulders in the neutral zone, a couple of which severely incapacitated our robot (a particular battle in semifinals broke our 3D printed camera mount and was the reason our shooting was off in the finals).

There were some really intense fights over resources. Our intake basically needs to be completely rebuilt for St. Louis. Going after that rebound in your own court yard can get competitive....

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by AWoL

Aerial Assist in 2014 was bad because of the crazy defense, but this year it seems like even the game itself is trying to break your robot. And not only do you have to deal with defense and the defenses, everyone's drivetrains are built to climb over things that happen to be roughly the height of most people's bumpers. Add to that all the brawls between robots' intakes in the neutral zone and it starts to make sense why so many robots this year aren't performing at their best come finals. What do you think? Is FIRST Stronghold the roughest FRC game to date?

I'd love to see some data on the number of backup robots called this year versus previous years. Without looking at some data, I qualitatively say that this is easily the roughest game, if not ever, then at least in a long time.

[Chris is me]

We're spoiled by years of flat field games with no obstacles. People have gradually been moving their drivetrains closer and closer to the margins of strength assuming every game would have 4" wheels, simple obstacles, not jumping over things, etc. and this game threw all of that away. As a result, 16T sprockets, 25 chain drives, etc. are failing everywhere and people are saying the game is rough, when really the designs didn't adjust for the rigors of the game.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

We're spoiled by years of flat field games with no obstacles. People have gradually been moving their drivetrains closer and closer to the margins of strength assuming every game would have 4" wheels, simple obstacles, not jumping over things, etc. and this game threw all of that away. As a result, 16T sprockets, 25 chain drives, etc. are failing everywhere and people are saying the game is rough, when really the designs didn't adjust for the rigors of the game.

None of these three decisions are bad in a vacuum this year, but when it rains, it pours.

[Koko Ed]

Most brutal game I've seen in my 15 years of doing FIRST. The field is breaking robots while robots are breaking the field and now robots are starting to break each other. It's gonna get worse in St. Louis. Alot worse!

[TheModMaster8]

Originally Posted by AWoL

Aerial Assist in 2014 was bad because of the crazy defense, but this year it seems like even the game itself is trying to break your robot. And not only do you have to deal with defense and the defenses, everyone's drivetrains are built to climb over things that happen to be roughly the height of most people's bumpers. Add to that all the brawls between robots' intakes in the neutral zone and it starts to make sense why so many robots this year aren't performing at their best come finals. What do you think? Is FIRST Stronghold the roughest FRC game to date?

Our robot got demolished (exadriateing a little) our first comp we broke 5 chains over several matches, one whole side at one point. Our POT mount for our arm broke 2 times, our cam bus got disconnected during a match. our roll cage got rolled up on by another bot in the quarter finals, our orange light mount got completely meshed up. our wheel trusses got bent like crazy, (one was in a 's' shape). our shooter ball guiders got bend ever flipping match, we lost our camera during our semi match (we didn't need it though) and our support bracket that tied our robots frame at the front, got bent so it looked like this ||__|| --> //__\\ or \\__// ( ||,\\, // ) 'are the wheel sides of the robot'

[mrnoble]

The difficulty with this particular game stems more from the fact that teams' institutional memory of games before RR has failed. AA was rougher in robot-to-robot interaction, while Stronghold is rougher in terms of vertical drops and robot-to-field interaction. RR taught new students that FRC robots could be lightly built and survive, which is one of the longer lasting shames about that game.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

The difficulty with this particular game stems more from the fact that teams' institutional memory of games before RR has failed. AA was rougher in robot-to-robot interaction, while Stronghold is rougher in terms of vertical drops and robot-to-field interaction. RR taught new students that FRC robots could be lightly built and survive, which is one of the longer lasting shames about that game.

And bumpers. There were basically 3 years worth of students on teams who had never had to build a robust bumper. (Let alone compliant with the rules...)

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by CalTran

And bumpers. There were basically 3 years worth of students on teams who had never had to build a robust bumper. (Let alone compliant with the rules...)

This statement confuses me. Surely students who competed in Aerial Assist would have some memory of how to build robust bumpers.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

This statement confuses me. Surely students who competed in Aerial Assist would have some memory of how to build robust bumpers.

A one year gap is a lot of time to forget.

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by CalTran

A one year gap is a lot of time to forget.

It really is, and plus Aerial Assist simply didn't have that much brute force on either the frame or the bumpers (I've been told). Most of the bumpers I saw falling off, happened when the robot hit a defense the wrong and got stuck.

Tell me, (I wasn't a part of aerial assist) did bumpers fall off often in aerial assist?