King of Mountain Robots

[Lord Nerdlinger]

the problem with the king of the hilll bots, is what if everyone is trying to do that? or you have an alliance, neither people stacking, the other team doesn't need a very high stack to easily beat you.

*our robot can't stack, but we'd like it too...

[Jason Haaga]

I'll put up a Dew on the first 15 seconds taking down the central wall as the key to the match. Not many teams will be able to effectively move large numbers of them across the field, so getting that wall down on your side makes a huge impact. Opposing stackers can't do much if they don't have boxes to play with.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally posted by 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?!?!

I'm assuming the person meant the black balls from 2001 (the ones on the field, that is). During nationals, I don't recall a single team purposely scoring a black ball from the field in 2001.

-Chris

[Greg Perkins]

Originally posted by Solace
wouldn't having an 11 1/2 foot wingspan be bad? If someone rams you at the tip of the arm, it would be extremely easy for them to spin you around.

yea but we have like 3 brakes on our bot, we have 2 for the ends of the wings 1 pneumatic brake in the back an if we lower our foot that is also a brake....we aer not moving!



bad

[Solace]

Originally posted by badjokeguy
yea but we have like 3 brakes on our bot, we have 2 for the ends of the wings 1 pneumatic brake in the back an if we lower our foot that is also a brake....we aer not moving!

granted that that does make it a little bit better for you, but just because you have breaking mechaisms at the ends of your arms doesn't mean that you necessarily have a weight center over those arms. as such, while the brakes underneath the chassis of your robot will most likely hold fast if someone tries to push you, the brakes under the arms wouldn't have lot of power (that is of course assuming that you do not lift your chassis off the floor to distribute the weight onto your arms - since you said that you have breaks under your chassis, i'm assuming that you don't do that). remember, traction on a smooth surface is a factor not only of your coefficient of friction, but also the force applied to the area of contact.

[Mark Pettit]

Last year, judges would allow a robot to "ram" an opposition robot once, but not allow it to continuously back off and ram them again and again. Kings-of-the-hill will be sitting pretty (for lack of a better term) if the judges enforce this rule again this year. If, however, the judges allow us to do what it takes to break a robot's traction on the platform, then I hope that the ramp dominators have built machines that can take a beating because we will get through.
It brings up an interesting question. Is it fair to allow for ramming of ramp dominators? I'm sure that your answer will be based upon whether or not you are a ramp-dominator, but I'll ask anyway.
I'm all about opening up on someone that sticks themselves to the top of the ramp. Especially since FIRST is going for the spectator-quality game. Watching 1:45 of barricade just doesn’t seem like it would be appealing.

[inwoodraider]

we start out at 22 inches wide and 11 inches high and we expand to 142 inches wide and 71 inches high. Block anyone?
And yes, we are a rookie team.

[SuperJake]

Originally posted by Mark Pettit
Last year, judges would allow a robot to "ram" an opposition robot once, but not allow it to continuously back off and ram them again and again.

Obviously you missed *EVERY* one of our matches.. We were the big green robot that held all 3 goals (sometimes) and just anchored in the center of the field. Robots would start at the player station and ram full speed into a wing that was not supporting a goal several times over again and this was allowed. We also got the last DQ of the nation because a team repeatedly rammed into one of our wing joints where we had some string helping to strengthen the joint, they became entangled, freed themselves, then entangled themselves again... we were DQed.

Point being: If you're going to build a king-of-the-hill bot, be prepared to take a beating. Robot-to-Robot contact and damage is allowed if the defending robot is in a scoring position.

[Jnadke]

Wings = long lever to push you out of the way easier.

There is no legal way to secure your wings so that the other team cannot use it as a lever against you. You can't touch the sides, and you can't touch the mesh. I think some teams have forgotten some very basic physics. Oh well, the longer the better


Everyone that says stacks aren't a factor... I beg to differ. Please don't tell me that 29 boxes on the field aren't important... Even if you make some stacks of 2, you get more points than any king of the hill bot could ever get.

The maximum number of points 2 KOTH bots can get is 50 points.

A stacker can very easily earn that by getting the 29 boxes in the beginning and building a stack of 2, while you foolish robots just sit up there.

[Cory]

Originally posted by Chris Hibner
I'm assuming the person meant the black balls from 2001 (the ones on the field, that is). During nationals, I don't recall a single team purposely scoring a black ball from the field in 2001.

-Chris

He is referring to 2000 when there were black and yellow balls(I think). In 2001 the black balls were worth only one point

Cory

[Greg Perkins]

Originally posted by Jnadke
Wings = long lever to push you out of the way easier.

There is no legal way to secure your wings so that the other team cannot use it as a lever against you. You can't touch the sides, and you can't touch the mesh. I think some teams have forgotten some very basic physics. Oh well, the longer the better


Everyone that says stacks aren't a factor... I beg to differ. Please don't tell me that 29 boxes on the field aren't important... Even if you make some stacks of 2, you get more points than any king of the hill bot could ever get.

The maximum number of points 2 KOTH bots can get is 50 points.

A stacker can very easily earn that by getting the 29 boxes in the beginning and building a stack of 2, while you foolish robots just sit up there.

ok dude,
say like our bot can knock all 7 stacks on our side, if we get most of our boxes in front of the bridgewe still can get points if we have some in the zone. but you are right about the 50 points tho.

and i see it hard for people to push all 29 boxes BACK up the ramp, our team has a hard time with it. so i asssume that you are wrong


bad

[Todd Derbyshire]

However you stackers are forgetting that you are not going to have boxes on your scoring side of the field to stack. Hence you have to go through the ramp. If you can score from the otherside of the field then the king of the hill robots alliance partner I would imagine would be more than happy to move the boxes out of the zone or playing field. Anybody else think about this and who says a king of the hill robot can't stack??Muahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhaahhahahah ahhahaha

[Paul Copioli]

Todd,

You are hitting to the heart of my point. I do think a robot powerful enough to be king of the hill can also be made to stack, but I also think that in order to truly dominate the middle ground you will need to get into position within the 1st 4 seconds and not move the entire match.

Do I think there will be teams to do this successfully? YES.

If there are teams that do this successfully, then their partner will be 2 v 1 for the entire match.

My contention is that the second a ramp dominator leaves the top surfaace, it becomes open territory.

-Paul

[Todd Derbyshire]

What I am saying is what happens if a ramp dominator can stack from the top of the ramp while blocking the ramp. I know a ramp blocker isn't going to go around and stack boxes but what happens if it has a cherry picking device that can reach both scoring zones and just manipulates the totes with its long arm. This might not be a winning qualification strategy but it sounds like a good elimination round strategy.

[Cory]

yeah right. How are you going to find a way to extend 11 feet, anchor yourself, and then after that have a 20 foot arm that can reach to either side. There is no way youd fit all this in the size restraints, as well as weight restraints
[edit] why would your strategy change from quals. to elims. the game does not change like last year, you still want your score to be close to the other alli's.



Cory