why sooo many bad robots in 07

[nuggetsyl]

I am really disapointed in the lack of working robots this year. I think the reason why we see so many bad robots is because teams think they have to do everything. There is a saying jack of all master of none. Another reason why i think teams dont do well is they make the most complex robots i have ever seen K.I.S.S. I know there are a few good hybred robots out there. But there few and far between. I would love to see teams next year tackle one task first and then add another when the first one is finshed.

[Meyerman]

not all teams have the best resources im sure all the teams have done the best they could i know you guys and my team are very lucky to have great sponsers from BMS and J&J, but more teams sould also try using K.I.S.S. it is the best way.

[Joel J]

I haven't seen alot of bad robots that were bad because they tried to do everything, though I do not deny their existence. I've seen alot of bad robots because of a poor gripper, or a poor drivetrain. Usually, it has been a poor gripper. By poor gripper I mean slow grab, poor hold, slow release, awkward release onto the rack, holding the tube vertically or worse, etc. Also, there are a few that attempted to be ramps only, but failed, or ended with sub-par ramps.

I agree that there are alot of bad robots, but I disagree that there are more bad robots than normal.

[AznPrincess3089]

Originally Posted by Joel J.

I haven't seen alot of bad robots that were bad because they tried to do everything, though I do not deny their existence. I've seen alot of bad robots because of a poor gripper, or a poor drivetrain. Usually, it has been a poor gripper. By poor gripper I mean slow grab, slow release, awkward release onto the rack, holding the tube vertically, etc. Also, there are a few that attempted to be ramps only, but failed, or ended with sub-par ramps.

I agree that there are alot of bad robots, I disagree that there are more bad robots than normal.

I admit that, at first, my team did try to do arm and ramp but it was in the middle of the building process when we realized that it just wasnt happening so we became a SUPER COOL rampbot.

[Bongle]

I'm not so sure there are that many 'bad' ones as compared to previous years. You being on team 25, you would've gone to championships, so your last memory of FIRST would have been the arbitrarily high quality at Atlanta, rather than the much more down-to-earth quality at regionals. Think to a regional last year: How many robots could shoot autonomous? How many robots couldn't shoot at all? How many teams did you see just setting ramming autonomous modes because they couldn't do any better?

So here's my theory:
I think more teams might be thought of as bad because there is only one way to score points this year within the non-endgame time, and it requires advanced manipulating. Last year, if your shooter didn't work, you could at least ram balls in the low goals. In 2005, you could push tetras under the towers. In 2004, you could, again, push balls into the low goals. In 2003, you could push bins across the playing field into your own zone. There is no way for a box-on-wheels to score this year other than to climb a ramp, and that's more of an end-game bonus that all previous years had anyway.

So the short version: There are just as many bad robots as last year, but this year's game has fewer opportunities for them to make lemonade from their lemons, unlike past games where there was always something 'simple' to do.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Bongle

...How many teams did you see just setting ramming autonomous modes because they couldn't do any better?

ROFL. A solid defense is sometimes the best offence - if you can't do any better than the guy on the opposite alliance, but you can stop the other guy from scoring, it's perfectly valid to shut him down. Bumper-on-Bumper contact is very legal.

Watch the fun starting at time mark 1:50.
mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/2006/first/lonestar/040106f3.wmv

BTW, we have much respect for team 118, last year at Lone Star they were completely dominant in autonomous. However, being the best of the best does have its downside, you have a lot of people who analyze you very thoroughly looking for a [narrow opening] in the armor. When someone finds it, you should see it as reverence - someone has been thinking about you over the course of 2-3 days more than you've probably thought about yourself!

-Danny

[oddjob]

It looks like quite a few teams have reused drivetrains from previous years, and ended up with a robot that has little ground clearance and can't climb a ramp. Or they clean sheet designed a robot that can't climb. The ramp bonus is so large that this pretty much eliminates those robots from challenging for nationals.

It's an interesting juggle this year, deciding where to best allocate the weight to design a robot that does at least one thing well. I dare say that most teams have to live with decisions made early in the 6 week build window and if the end result is not optimal, time and money constraints limit their ability to make improvements.

[meatmanek]

Originally Posted by Joel J.

I haven't seen alot of bad robots that were bad because they tried to do everything, though I do not deny their existence. I've seen alot of bad robots because of a poor gripper, or a poor drivetrain. Usually, it has been a poor gripper. By poor gripper I mean slow grab, poor hold, slow release, awkward release onto the rack, holding the tube vertically or worse, etc. Also, there are a few that attempted to be ramps only, but failed, or ended with sub-par ramps.

Don't be dissing on the vertical tube handling, man. As soon as there's video of 868's robot online, I'll show you how much vertical tube handling rocks.

But yeah, I'll agree that I've seen a lot of terribly inefficient grabbers. Seems like it takes most robots 10-15 seconds to pick up a tube.
Grabber mistakes I've seen:
2 flat, parallel pincers - The tube flies out when you turn
Grab from the top - You have to aim in 2 directions now
Nothing on the robot to help align the tube - makes the driver aim more
No positional control on the arm (Potentiometers are cheap, people.) - Makes the operator's job incredibly difficult
Lack of tube sensors - Makes the driver react, rather than the robot.

A few sensors and a bit of programming goes a long way. It also helps quite a bit if you plan ahead and design so that sensors are possible.

[T3_1565]

Grab from the top - You have to aim in 2 directions now

well I have seen a few robots that can score this way quite nicely, and thursday will be our test to see if we can too, I'm not too sure what you mean by aiming in two directions, but thankfully we can grab from whatever part of the tube we see fit but our main way is from over top, so our claw doesn't get caught on the spider foot.. we will have to see I guess

[wilsonmw04]

"bad" is a relative term. If a team is young, having a robot that moves isn't "bad" for them. Remember, you were a rookie once too...

[65_Xero_Huskie]

I also think "Bad" is a bad word for it.
Many teams did try and go for both and it didnt work out. Our team had to decide on a type for us because we knew we didnt want to do everything. We decided to make a scorer because there would be many ramps. Teams always try to do the Jack of all trades but it doesnt work out most of the time

[JoeXIII'007]

Personal opinion: the word bad is appropriate, however, it shoudln't be applied to the robots out there, because they are pretty impressive.

It is more like bad luck... *shrugs*

-Joe

[Karthik]

Instead of jumping on Shaun's choice of words, can we focus on the issue he's brought up? The FRC is much more exciting when there are more quality robots on the field. A drop in quality across the board is a serious issue. I believe there are a few factors.

- As pointed out, many teams have tried to do too much this year
- Not enough attention paid to manipulator design
- With the Banebot difficulties, teams had to spend more time on their drivetrains, especially at their initial event. (Installing new carrier plates)
- In past games we had full specifications for our task. Last year we knew there was a 4' foot ramp with a 30* incline. This year teams were forced to try and figure out what the specifications would be. This was a great challenge, and simulates a real world engineering decision. Unfortunately many teams made poor assumptions. (28" is wide enough for a ramp, we only need to climb 15*, etc.)

If you want to talk about why all robots are great and how "it's not about the robot", do it in a different thread. Let's leave this thread to discuss what's caused the drop in quality, and what we can do in the future to improve it.

[Cody Carey]

Who has the right to say that another team tried to do too much? It really isn't any of our business. What they decided to build their robot to do is their choice... and unless somebody else payed their registration fee, their choice alone.

We can't do anything to improve the overall quality of robots, at least not like this. That is up to each and every team that chooses to compete. The way to improve the quality would be to provide guides, and to help the teams who came up with not-so-quality robots.

Instead of saying "Teams are building pieces of junk, they need to do better.", we should be encouraging people. If we want to effect the target group of teams, we shouldn't talk about them in a thread which details how crappy their robots are.We should be making whitepapers on effective robot design; telling them what some effective strategies for our teams have been. Each team is different, and what works for us may not work for the next guy.

All I'm saying is that we are all going about this wrong. We shouldn't be talking as if we are better than the teams in question. While some of us may be able to build a higher quality of robot, the teams that need help will not listen if it is put across this way.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Karthik

- With the Banebot difficulties, teams had to spend more time on their drivetrains, especially at their initial event. (Installing new carrier plates)

The carrier plate issue is the gift that keeps on giving; all these pictures on CD combined with what I've seen at two regionals just makes me skittish about using them on drive. (However, I do give props to the BaneBots gearboxes for making it easier than years past to go omnidirectional. If someone were to bring to market a reliable one-CIM gearbox with a gear reduction similar to the BaneBots, I think they'd make a buck or two next season.)

One other thing that might factor into the equation: the rack itself. It is, arguably, the most complex structure FIRST has ever put on the carpet. More importantly, it's a pain in the butt to really replicate short of building the whole thing. (I've noodled a bit with 1293's three-spider-leg mockup, and I've noodled a bit with the field-spec practice rack at Chesapeake. You can feel a difference.) Many teams with limited budgets or manpower didn't build a full rack; I don't know of one within an hour of Columbia. If you don't know how the rack will react, you can't be fully prepared for the rack--and I'm thinking this element might have caught some arm teams by surprise.

Originally Posted by Cody Carey

Who has the right to say that another team tried to do too much? It really isn't any of our business. What they decided to build their robot to do is their choice... and unless somebody else payed their registration fee, their choice alone.

We can't do anything to improve the overall quality of robots, at least not like this. That is up to each and every team that chooses to compete. The way to improve the quality would be to provide guides, and to help the teams who came up with not-so-quality robots.

Instead of saying "Teams are building pieces of junk, they need to do better.", we should be encouraging people. If we want to effect the target group of teams, we shouldn't talk about them in a thread which details how crappy their robots are.We should be making whitepapers on effective robot design; telling them what some effective strategies for our teams have been. Each team is different, and what works for us may not work for the next guy.

All I'm saying is that we are all going about this wrong. We shouldn't be talking as if we are better than the teams in question. While some of us may be able to build a higher quality of robot, the teams that need help will not listen if it is put across this way.

I don't think anybody's trying to hand out bottles of Haterade around here--they're simply trying to get a better appreciation for why the quality, real or perceived, of robots this season is off compared to past seasons. If we start noticing a trend, perhaps we can then work to address the ones that are clobbering a lot of teams.