King of Mountain Robots

[Alex Forest]

if it can be done on carpet, i am sure that someone will find a way to do it on plastic. think of taht lovely huge suction cup they gave us.

[Paul Copioli]

O.K.,

This is the perfect time to bring up a Mountain Dew Wager.

First, my position on the subject:

While I agree that an effective stacker might be hard to come by, it is not quite the black balls of 2000. The biggest difference: The 2000 black balls were only worth 5 points and stacks are multipliers. Look back in FIRST history. When were multipliers not a factor? Could this be the first time the multiplier will not make the difference?

My wager is that the multiplier will be the difference, but that 25 point robot position does put some doubt in my head.

I think that to be an effective ramp dominator, you will need to spend your entire life on the ramp and that basically makes it a 2 v. 1 game. And make no mistake that there will be robots very effective at relocating bins from one side to the other without using the ramp (Chief Delphi, this is my prediction for one of your functions). While I agree that there probably will be a few robots capable of taking control of the top of the ramp, they will be doing that the whole match.

Any takers? I say the multiplier will be the difference again this year.

-Paul

[JVN]

Originally posted by Paul Copioli

Any takers? I say the multiplier will be the difference again this year.

-Paul

Paul,
I'm in.

I say the ramp position will be the key thing this year.
Except, I'm not a Dew fan... I'll take rootbeer... haha.

[EvilInside]

I don't think stacking is the key. I think *drumroll* going under the bar is going to be the key. I like Mountain Dew, in fact, Team 706 runs off of Mountain Dew, so I won't mind taking one from you, and we will have plenty in the unlikely case you actually win See ya at Midwest!

[Paul Copioli]

O.K,

That's 1 rootbeer and 1 Mountain Dew for me. Anyone else?

Do I stand alone in my belief that stacking is the key?


-Paul

[Cory]

I think stacking will be very very important, but even more so, a teams ability to control the opposing alliances stack. By this, I don't mean ramming into it, and sending boxes flying, but being able to manipulate a stack however they want. As a part of this, I also think that whoever can knock the majority of the "wall" onto their side will probably win the macth.

I know I'm supposed to pick one thing, but I don't think any one aspect will make or break a match, besides who hits the wall first

Cory

[ChewyMasterFlex]

Suction is bad. We rejected suction the first day we decided to do King of the Hill because I knew by forum that the HDPE will be in varying conditions. We have this ghettoriffic thing so that a pair of pneumatic pumps with metal plates with rubber lift us off from the ground, thus having a completely stationary 'bot. Ours is built to be approx. 120 inches (10ft) long, and the actual bot is only 48". So it's not likely that we're going to be spun, that's 130 pounds of communist wall you're trying to move, with 48x10 inches of traction, my friend.

This is the most difficult bot to make I beleive, because though most bots need to work well and stay durable to some extent, we need to take the beating of two machines for a full 90 seconds. And we need to get up there first with a really fast drive, or else it just doesn't work.

On top of that, there are going to be plenty of low-riders that will go under the pipe, or have a crazy design that can go over the pipe, as well as other low-rider blockers (that's us).

How many weeks into build season has it been? 4? 5?

[Mullen]

ok, i think its time on got in on my post thread, our team was originally going to be a king of the hill bot with the ability to create small stacks. after a couple weeks we changed to a stacker that can spread the length. reason we changed - with what our "wing" team could use we came up with an amazing design that would keep us on the platform the whole time,in theory, the flaw with this design is that we couldnt find an easy way to get the wings back into our bot(we can go under the bar).. we changed the design a little while back because we wanted to be able to move, not just sit on top and HOPE that no one pushes us off, cuz then we would be useless.
im just afraid that king of the hill bots could make this game a little boring
oh, and who will guarantee that NO ONE will get by their "wall"? anybody that confident in their design? id like to hear from you

[Rick]

stackin is most definatley needed. to get high qps you need someone on either side to stack to get the points up there.

[Andy Grady]

Woah woah woah waoh WOAH!!!...

Tell me you didn't just say that the black balls in 2000 were not the key to the game?!?! The black balls in 2000 were by no means insignificant...they meant the difference between champions and runners up! Try telling the two teams who probably played the biggest role in the road to the finals, as well as the finals...Teams 25 and 131. For two teams who based their whole strategy on taking those little black balls that were ONLY worth 5 points, out of one goal and into another, they did pretty darn good! Furthermore, 131 didn't even hang! That only got them a regional championship and a nationals finalist trophy...

What it comes down to is this...we will have no clue what the most significant part of the game is until we leave Houston...but don't be suprised if its that one thing that may not seem like it was very significant at first.

Good Luck All!
-Andy Grady

[D@ve]

I agree with ricksta that getting hi qps is the right way to go to seed as hi as posible...because we all know that the qualifing matches are just a dress rehrsal for the elimenation rounds. Thats when the real competition begins...

[Todd Derbyshire]

I'll take the opposite approach and say that controlling the ramp is going to be the key to winning. By winning I mean bringing home a trophy. Now if you have a robot that can stack but you can't go over the ramp congrats you just lost the game have fun running aimlessly on your side of the field. For all of you people who think scoring from the other side of the field is going to be the way to stop the dominant king of the hill bots ummmmm what if the alliance partner of the king of the hill robot comes over and keeps moving the bins out of the zone.

[Clanat]

How tall are most blocking wings going to be? If they are less than 8 inches or so, our robot could just go fast and drive right over the top of them.

[sevisehda]

FIRST some replies...

"Any takers? I say the multiplier will be the difference again this year."
-Paul C
It will matter in qualifiers but not in finals.


"I say the ramp position will be the key thing this year."
-Jon V

I'll talk about Team 25 thinking its the Brystol Bot with the amazing arm that could cherry pick like a GOD, if team 25 was not the Brystol Bot then whatever...

Team 25 could take control of the field, they dominated the center and at least partially blocked half the field.

If you control the ramp you elimate half of the way across the field for a lowrider and you trap a non-lowrider. Ramp-dom also scores 25 points and prevents 50 points from the opponents. That a 75 point difference.

Even if a team can make a bot that can move boxes from one side to another it will still be slow because of the fact they'd have to be moved at least 12 feet. True a stacker may be able to stack 10 high but how are they gonna do that when they only have 8 human player boxes? They'd have to import at least 12 more. Then stack 10 high to get 100 points. I doubt that the ramp-doms ally would allow that to happen.

Even if the ramp-dom loses the fight for the wall it can still push boxes over the ramp back onto his side or at least out of the opponents scoring position, and when the stacker is almost done with his stack of 10(hopefully protecting it with some cage). the ramp-dom rams the stacker knocks it(stack and/or bot) over he can go back to the ramp for a triumpant win.

As to how high a ramp-dom will be, Some pics show bots with about 4 inch paddles others I'm sure will be 2ft+.

[SlamminSammy]

I just want to make sure the stackers know they have to:

1. Make a minimum stack of 7
2. Defend a minimum of two stacks from arms, flying boxes, etc.
3. Have massive amounts of torque to prevent another robot from pushing them into their stack

So, stackers, can you do this???

If your building a stacker and cannot meet these three criteria, all I can say is good luck. I think you're going to need it.

P.S. If you stackers are using a cage-like system, I hope you don't need room beyond your robot to release the boxes. This could be very risky....