Are ramp blocker bots working?

[Rurouni]

Originally posted by sevisehda
I've heard a few funny stories about a certain KOH hill bot at a UTC regional whos name starts with a C end with and N and has a Larkso in the middle.(SNL) But if you think about it, nothing is really doing what its supposed to this year. Few stackers stack and few rammpdoms rampdom it seems that everyone is just pushing and shoving.

Well when we worked, we worked phenomenal. The two matches we were able to get on top and drop our wings, we let nothing, and I mean nothing through. On friday we were able to drop our wings, and raise the one wing up in order to allow our alliance partner (1124) to slip on top of the ramp for I think the 3rd highest score at the regional for qp's. That was while a bot was stuck on top of one of our wings. Granted, the other times we worked weren't nearly as impressive but I think we will have all our problems ironed out by nationals.

[edomus]

My team(1218) has a multipurpose bot that can hold the hill. We competed in pittsburgh yesterday and we did much better than expected. When given enough time to deploy our gigantic suction cup it is very very hard to move us off the time. We were even able to hold off Delphi E.L.I.T.E. in one of the qualifying matches. and it was great because their alliance did not get the 25 because delphi was touching them.

[Clark Gilbert]

We (the TechnoKats) have actually not even had a successful lockdown to the HDPE yet. Mainly because of various mechanical issues (St. Louis and Pittsburgh), so we find it just as useful in the qualifying rounds to use our wings to knock over the totes (just got automode working pretty well in Pittsburgh), and then use our size to take up space. If you are going to try to push our arms when they are down and not locked (or stuck becuase they dont work) you will spin us. I'm not expecting our full potential of ramp blocking to come out until Nationals, but I think we should do pretty well in Chicago.

[Eismann]

Our robot managed the hill fairly well. With a little work we shall be a contender in the KOH catagory.

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by Eismann
Our robot managed the hill fairly well. With a little work we shall be a contender in the KOH catagory.

Did you guys have any issues with the rules? I know there was some discussion, and I'm interested to see if you had to change anything. I hope not; it looked like a very menacing bot...

[Eismann]

I'm not sure about the ruling since we took off the lower section of the arm since we thought they were not needed. I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to use them though.

[Matt Attallah]

Just watch some of team 5's matches from the playoffs. (Or the last 2 of regular). That should say enough...

[WernerNYK]

This was really the first time we tried "defensive wedge" configuration. If you notice, our rail-extension mechnasim actually broke and was just free-riding which is why it failed us at the end. But we were very excited to see that our wedge otherwise worked flawlessly.

http://www.wpi.edu/~cmwerner/FIRST/video/BAEsemi1.wmv

[David.Cook]

Why is KOH not so successfull? I think the strategy does not yield enough QP.

In the one scenario given (which assumes everything works perfectly) you get there first, get all the bins and completely lock down the hill. So the opponent has 16 pts and you have 25 + (4*33) = 157 for 189 QP. Sounds great, eh.

Not so fast...
first you are depriving your alliance of 125 QP. If you really have all the bins and your 4 stack, then you actually want the other bots to get on the hill - those are QP's! You get 2*25 for every bot you let on the ramp. you also get 25 QP for your partner.

Still too fast...
about 50-70% of the bots get under the bar, so if you are stuck blocking the top, then it is almost a foregone conclusion that your stack is gone, because the other bots will go ballistic, they will spend 1:45 clearing out your area (we have all seen this in action) leaving maybe 5 or 6 bins. Now your fantastic score is 31 to 16, leaving you a wopping 63 QP.
[I checked and at NASA/VCU the average QP was 78]

Whoa Nellie, slow it down some more...
OK, the world ain't perfect, so let say just four bins dropped behind you as you crashed the stacks. Now the opponent actually has 4*8=32 pts to your 31!! Uh oh! They end up getting 93 QP.

Evasive action, immediately...
Now you find yourself leaving the hill to attack stacks or clear bins from the opponents scoring zone. So much for KOH as a sole strategy.

Disclaimer:
Yes, KOH and the 25 pts associated with it are VERY important. So important that there are times when you have to consider whether it is better to let your opponent on or not, or even decide whether you should get on or not (if you are losing badly). However, we are seeing in practice that you need not block the ramp to win, but you better be able to get there and stay there when you need to.

Thanks for letting me ramble a bit.

[jrgrim12]

We decided to build a thrower bot to beat KOH bots. We figured that if the KOH bot got to the top first that we would only have to get 3 more bins on our side to win if they left our stack alone. We could spend most of the time pushing their bins out of the way and then throw three bins across the bar and then go under the bar. Even if they knocked our stack down we were still able to stack four tall. But we never had the chance. You would only need to get 26 or more points to win and 7 times 4 is 28. But thats in a perfect world and as we all found out this game is nothing like we thought. We only threw 4 or 5 bins the hole 2 days, and that was more for fun than anything. The crowd loved it.

[Swampdude]

We expect low scores in our matches, so we're hoping we can get picked in the finals for the insurance win. But your scenarios point out that all the burden is on the opponent. Although I can think of quite a few scenarios where we could score pretty big. If our alliance is faster than us on the ramp (or can go under the bar), they can counter all the opponent work, or even stack. Also inherent to a KOH is it's width, which makes sweeping very efficient to return bins back into scoring. So say towards the end of the match we roll off the ramp and let the opponents on after insuring our alliance partner was secure on the ramp and let the other 2 fight him for it. While we go round all the bins back into scoring. Your scenarios don't take the alliance into consideration much. In fact in the finals I think 2 KOH's on the same team would be a really hard team to beat. But again the points are sure to be low. So us KOH's are gonna come beggin to get picked .... PLEASE PICK US!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got cool blinky pins

[Andrew]

It seems that the big problem with the winged KOH bots is that they have troubles with maneuverability. They can only effectively put their wings down when near the top of the hill.

If they have their wings up, then they are more tipply-topply. This may make them susceptible to over-turning when going up the hill.

If they get to the top and spread in auton mode, they should do well. If not, then they are not well configured to play 1:45 with other bots pushing and shoving on them.

We shall see how the mega-ramp-doms do in later regionals and nationals as they get the bugs worked out of their auton code and mechanics. Unlike stackers, I wouldn't toss in the towel on ramp-doms just yet.

[David.Cook]

I would have to agree that I expect KOH bots to improve at Nationals.

[Rurouni]

I agree with you there. When you have those huge wings drop down, unless they extend from the robot itselfs, its raising your cg while they're raised up. Going up that 14 degree angle, in they don't start to drop their wings as they go up, one good hit will send them tumbling.

[Swampdude]

Yes I agree. Thats why I'm curious to see how ours does since there's no wings. It seems anything hanging off a 30 x 36 chasis gives too much leverage away. Although 229's wedges seem to minimize the profile, as opposed to some of the other KOH's. Ours is like a full length 229, so it should be interesting