08-09-2012 22:48

Mk.32

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

What's with the black battery? I assume an non-legal battery for off season play?

08-09-2012 23:08

CalTran

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Without the bumpers, your collector almost looks wider than the actual drivebase...I think it may actually be wider than your robot...

Where was this at? A demo, or just a robot photoshoot?

08-09-2012 23:09

yottabyte

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

yup

08-09-2012 23:13

yottabyte

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

The photo was taken during the Calgary maker fair.

08-09-2012 23:46

Gregor

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Their appendage is right at their frame perimeter. Our pit was across from theirs at GTR east, so I got a good look at the robot in person.

(And this was before they were famous )

09-09-2012 00:09

JoeWithTheSpecs

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

One of my favorite robots of the season It was so sad seeing it being disassembled after IRI

09-09-2012 00:49

Chris is me

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I think a large part of FRC needs to step back and seriously ask themselves why they didn't build this robot. All the long bots who missed elims, shooters that could only do 2's from a tiny portion of the fender, teams who were in over their head in basically any capacity... You can learn a lot from this robot. With just enough features to have a competitive presence at all levels of play, I really think this is the best simple robot of this year, and an example of excellent strategic design.

09-09-2012 02:32

Mk.32

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Anything special? Extra capacity? Was thinking about getting some larger batteries for demo purposes.

09-09-2012 03:49

waialua359

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

From a strategic game playing perspective, this is absolutely true.
We see too many times where teams try to build the "do it all" bot and fail to different extents.
I will say however, that the journey is just as important. Regardless of how the robot turns out, its a success if the students, adults and mentors all learn something in the process.
Some teams understand this, but still go for the gold because of the value they place on that journey.

09-09-2012 11:04

yottabyte

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Nothing special. Get them cheep from a local supplier.

09-09-2012 12:26

LeelandS

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

It's probably because most teams don't want to play the roll 4334 played this year. I'm not trying to take away from 4334 in any capacity. They accomplished a tremendous amount this year, not just for a rookie, but for any team. Rookies making it to Einstein is not a frequent event.

However, 4334 was, for lack of a better term, a support robot. Their claim to fame is being a great feeder robot for two of the most dominant teams in FRC, 2056 and 1114. And there's nothing wrong with that. Since matches are played 3v3, being a support robot, a defensive robot, a feeding robot, is a necessary role. Most teams, however, don't want to play that role. Most teams want to be take an active scoring role for their alliance. Honestly, I find that to be the more fun and enriching part of FRC. If every team built a simple robot, didn't try to stretch boundaries, if the offensive roles were left to the teams that could only do it reliably, I'll be honest... It would be boring.

If a team wants to finish their season well, then yeah. Building a robot like this is awesome! It's a very desirable robot to round out a powerful alliance. 4334 should serve as an inspiration to all teams. They analyzed the game, and decided that it would be better to build "The little robot that could" than try to make 3 pointers. But I don't think "a large part of FRC" needs to try and follow this trend.

I will agree with you that, however, 4334 has taken a leap in strategic design that most teams haven't found yet. They built within their boundaries extremely well.

Cheers to 4334, on an amazing rookie year, and for many, many more great years to come!

09-09-2012 12:52

AlecMataloni

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

More boring than watching a regional competition where, let's say, 70% of the robots try to shoot 3's and only 15% can make more than one a match reliably? Because we've all seen something similar and if you haven't, allow me to tell you how painful it is to watch. There's a certain regional (maybe more) that in 2012 saw an elimination round match where the score was 0-0. That's not just painful. In my book, it's unacceptable.

I'd rather see an FRC competition where EVERYONE can at least score the bare minimum point values than one where everyone tries to do something really tough, with the majority failing miserably.

Boundaries should definitely be pushed if a team wants to play on the next level, but that doesn't mean teams shouldn't be realistic with their goals.

If everyone built at LEAST the MCC (Minimum Competitive Concept), Qualifications and Elims would both be way more exciting and I would be a happy scouter and spectator, not to mention the fact that I would be happy knowing that every team in FIRST had a chance to be a potentially fantastic alliance partner in both qualifications and eliminations.

09-09-2012 13:22

Chris is me

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Yes, most teams want to play that role, but here's the thing - most team's can't. They set their goals too high and fail, then they do the same thing year after year.

I think you'd be pleasantly surprised how much more competitive events would be with more simple and reliable robots on the field. Which is more exciting: Watching teams struggle to move and score even a single three pointer all match, then fall off the bridge, or a match where three robots are shuffling balls around the field, supporting one or two elite scorers, possibly scoring on their own in the lower goals trying to win with volume?

I think even if FRC were oversaturated with support bots (which will never happen, as teams will always continue to overestimate their capabilities), there would still be quite a bit more strategic depth than what we see now.

I think people understate 4334's regional level potential. They're not just good because they're 21 inches long and they have an intake roller. Another key part of their game was their autonomous mode - with an easy 8 points, plus easy balancing (either 20 on the alliance bridge, or co-op to seed high), they could score enough every match to secure their spot as an alliance captain or first round draft pick at almost any event this year.

09-09-2012 13:23

LeelandS

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree in some respects. I don't think it's okay if teams start saying "Well, we won't be able to make 3 pointers anyway. So let's not try to make them." I know that's not what you were saying was happening, but it was an implication I could see occurring in this circumstance.

Personally, yes. I would rather see 70% of robots try to make 3 pointers and only 15% make it. Because the 55% now have something to improve upon. And, in a nice, not necessarily perfect world, many of them would be working hard to become reliable shooters.

I love 4334's robot this year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to disparage them. They did a brilliant job building with their resources and experiences and it obviously payed off. And I'm not trying to say, to anyone who is reading this, "It doesn't matter if you don't think you can do it. Try it anyway." What I'm trying to get at is that I don't think everyone in FIRST should build a simple, support based robot, because you start taking away part of what I love about FIRST: The diversification of designs, the run for improvement on a team, and teams stretching their boundaries and learning from what happens as a result.

09-09-2012 13:56

Taylor

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I would argue that a lot of folks would like to have built that robot, but they didn't have the guts. It takes some cojones to be that specialized and rely on partners for qual wins and other teams' scouts for alliance pairings. Most teams take the "safe route" and try to do it all - often with less than stellar results. This is the most exciting non-traditional robot since Tumbleweed in 2008 (which made the 148-4334 interactions at IRI even more delicious).

09-09-2012 14:59

IndySam

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I usually don't disagree with you Taylor (excluding politics but I don't think it takes guts to understand your teams resources and capabilities. It doesn't take guts to analyse the game.

A robot that could manipulate and climb the bridge and balance would have won a lot more matches than a robot that scores poorly and can't do these simple things.

09-09-2012 15:02

stundt1

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I supported 4334. I think they were the top if not one of the best support robots. And they were only a rookie!

I feel its kinda a risky gamble that you will picked be on a top alliance with a support robot. Since a support robot doesn't necessarily score a lot of points they will usually seed lower making it a luck of the draw on what alliance they get chosen on.

Great job!!! Looking forward to seeing more robots from 4334.

09-09-2012 15:21

rachelholladay

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Every year one of our main mentors (ahem, my mum) says "Why can't be just build a simple robot that just does defense? Or just does the end-game?" We've never done it and really have never had a great answer as to why not. Now I'm not afraid to say that we have fallen victim to over-complication several times, which is probably what leads my mom to ask her question at the beginning of every build season.

The answer might be a little bit of fear and pride. I'll use 2008 as an example to contrast two robots. Robowranglers built a zippy little octagon that won CMP. We (my team) built an overly complicated machine that tried to do to much. I remember sitting in our strategy meetings. Everyone wants to build the bot that can do almost everything. Unfortunately, we all know that almost impossible. It takes some humility to say 'We aren't going to try to do everything because that just won't work'. (I'd like to say that we have learned some of humility throughout the years)

But I think there's also an element of fear. Sure you can build a robot that only plays the end game, but what if competition comes around, the endgame isn't as important as you thought and that strategy blows up in your face? The same would be true for a specialized robot. The Robowranglers 2008 robot worked because it did its job really, really, really well. What if we would have tried to build it and only done a okay good? Not only would we would probably not do as well at competition but we would also feel like limited our own abilities. Building a robot that does one thing well only works if that one thing is done super-duper-well. I think teams struggle from the fear that they can't achieve that. (myself included)

09-09-2012 16:36

Ekcrbe

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

But this won't increase the number of high quality scorers in the game. One of my favorite lines in pick list formation is "Any (scoring) robot can be a feeder robot." Another team's stubbornness or your lack of persuasion prevents this from being perfectly true, but if they can try to score, they can feed you. All that more feeder bot designs would do is prevent some mediocre scorers from evolving into elite scorers during the season.

Back to the topic at hand, everyone loves Rex, no?

09-09-2012 17:07

LeelandS

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

This.

This is one of the things I was trying to say, but couldn't quite get across as well as I'd have liked.

09-09-2012 19:06

stundt1

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Id have to agree with Erik.

10-09-2012 18:02

AdamHeard

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I think you're missing a bit behind their (assumed) intentions.

Lets talk about the team that due to current skills, resources, etc. can't effectively score no matter how hard they try. They can work hard, improve these skills, get resources, yada yada, and in the long run become much more capable. However, this can take seasons.

In the mean time, they can develop other skills (the intangible "how to win an event", or being competitive) by making simple, support robots. The team with less skills and resources can easily make these support robots.

As the team improves, they will some day flip a switch and decide to aim higher; and I'm darn sure they'll be more prepared to be a top tier team (in both robot design and competitive execution) than the team who spent the same amount of time always aiming to be a top robot.

Not only does it work out better for the team, it works out better for the other teams. It's incredibly depressing picking an alliance where your choice for a 3rd is more or less, "Well we can pick the team that reliably can't really do anything, or the other team that did something once". It'd be nice to round out every alliance at every regionals with robots that can provide meaningful capability.

I can't speak for 4334's intentions, but I doubt their five year plan involves being a support bot for every season.

10-09-2012 21:48

cmrnpizzo14

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I feel like I should contribute a little more Rochester input to this thread. I would also like to preface this by saying that I absolutely LOVE Rex.

What ATA did was perfect. No matter which rookie team you are, you still extremely limited. Being on a now 4th year team, I still feel extremely limited because of our lack of experience. ATA chose a perfect strategy. They chose a simple reliable role that suits a rookie team perfectly. Obviously, rookie teams cannot create the robot that 1114, 2056, or even 1507 create. 4334 picked a role and the did it well. That is something that I think more teams could definitely benefit from.

I don't want to say that all of FIRST should build support robots. Nor do I want all of FIRST to try and reach for something and fail. I think that teams should understand what sort of robot they are making and make it well. This year, teams could have performed better if they picked to be either a balancing robot or a shooting robot. A robot that can make 3's consistently would be just as valuable to an alliance as a robot that can balance consistently. The bottom line is that whatever sort of robot you make, you need to just make it well. Any robot, whether it be offensive, defensive, or super unconventional is just as rewarding for the team and as enjoyable for spectators as long as it is well made.

The process is really what matters. If a team designs their robot before building it, prototypes, and works together to create their machine, it will turn out pretty good in the end.

11-09-2012 09:48

Nick Lawrence

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Only on CD can a photo of a robot start a debate of whether most teams should have built it - even five months after the regular season.

Great robot, though. Looking forward to seeing how you guys build and play with an offensive style robot.

-Nick

12-09-2012 11:50

BASE

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I may be biased when saying this, but ATA was easily my favourite team this year. Thank you for making our Rookie year amazing!! Glad to have shared our first eliminations with a fellow Canadian rookie team, as well as our alliance captain 2852!

Now i feel like i should address that it is a big deal that ATA is a rookie team. I mean, 4334's Rookie All-Star award became their initial step towards success at Archimedes and eventually admission into IRI. This made them really the only support bot to advance from our Regional, as it was from their success as a Rookie team.

I feel that a huge growth in support bots would be unhealthy for FRC. I think that success with supports are limited, as the only way to really be successful as a support is to be freakin' amazing!! *cough* REX *cough*

Wouldn't a mediocre support just be a mediocre shooter, without the ability to shoot? So is this design plan really the obvious choice? Or is it maybe a choice that only rookie teams should consider?

12-09-2012 12:32

IndySam

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

No, a poor shooter usually also makes a poor support bot because the team that built it focused on shooting instead of being a good partner for a better shooter.

Having attended 6 regionals and the championship I would say that a bot that was singly good at manipulating and balancing on the bridge and in short orientation would have been a winning robot. Those simple bonus point would have won the majority of qualification matches I saw. Also the ability to coop would have helped them rank even higher. Add in the ability to simply collect and feed balls and you have a huge advantage over 90% of the teams that competed this year.

I would have killed to have one of those to pick as the number one seed at Boiler and the number 2 seed at Queen City.

12-09-2012 20:37

sg999

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

First off, REX was an amazing example of what can happen through hard work and a little bit of humility. Now to the debate.

I feel that it's better to have a robot that can only play in autonomous and the end game than to have a robot that can play the entire game badly.

Our strategy for our regional (CT regional) this year was to try to play the entire game, which didn't work out so well because we could play everything badly. (Yes, I'll admit it, I was a strong proponent of being able to do everything) Yes, we worked hard last season to become one of the reliable shooters. However, it didn't work because we don't have the basic skills needed to build even a strong drive train. After our regional, we redesigned our robot to play only autonomous and the end game. This strategy, for us at least, was much more effective (see sig).

I think 4334 took the right approach their rookie year by trying not to do everything. If they had tried to immitate their alliance partners' success by building a robot that could sort of do everything, they might not have done as well (I don't know, just hypothetically speaking). While being a defensive robot might not be for everyone, it's still important for developing teams to have a robot that can do something at least. Even though there are teams out there that might be ready to take the next step and become an offensive robot, there are still teams (like ours) that need lots of improvement to be a great support robot.

Just my two cents.

13-09-2012 04:11

BackInCalgary

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I was in Calgary this summer and worked a bit with 4334 planning the new Calgary/West Canada Regional (I can't remember the official name, but check it out, it'll be awesome), mostly I helped with finding ways to get new students/teams involved. Unfortunately, this little thing was nowhere to be found...

I liked the strategy, especially since they are set up to transition out of their "support" role with the experience they gained in their rookie year, which will be very fun to see (they had just one student with FRC experience for their rookie season by my unofficial count). There will also be an influx of rookies sharing resources next season, so there could be some new competition dynamics in Canada. Remember the Niagra Triplets? There's like, 15 this time.

13-09-2012 08:53

Arefin Bari

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

That is one little firecracker. I was amazed and very impressed by this team during the past season. Good job for making your rookie year a memorable one.

13-09-2012 10:59

Nick Lawrence

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

That would be...

... interesting.

www.yeahbutton.com

-Nick

13-09-2012 21:34

Gray Adams

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

I don't know about you guys, but I would be pretty disappointed to show up to a regional and see 30 basic, support level robots and 20 robots that try to play the full game. It's the ideas that I see in every robot that makes it so much fun to go to competition. Winning is great and all, but how much does it really matter?

You only have a maximum of 4 years on a team, less if you join later. Especially for teams with a longer history, it's incredibly difficult to sit down and say you're not capable of building a robot to play the tougher elements of the game and you'll work up to it over a few years. The seniors will especially have trouble digesting this. It's easy for a rookie or 2nd year team to do it, but when you're a team that's been flirting with success but also encountering failure, it's hard.

Bomb Squad didn't go for a wheeled shooter even though they thought it would be better (maybe not better, can't remember what they said), they wanted the catapult because it was different (if any of that is inaccurate, I apologize). But that's the fun of this "sport". You can be inspired by some incredible ideas on robots that you thought were to crazy to work. It's so much fun to walk into the arena and see all the ideas your team went through, plus some that you never even considered. They're obviously not all going to win, and many probably will not even do well. But is that a reason to discourage teams from being ambitious and striving to have a robot that isn't a "safe" bet to build?

Even if you don't win any matches but your design is more or less validated by extremely similar elite robots, that doesn't mean you failed or should have set lower goals. Now, I'm not saying go crazy and try to build a robot that looks like this, but I think the teams that want to tap every available resource, evaluate their potential, and then push for just a little more than that, despite the inherent risk of failure, shouldn't be told building a simple support is better.

14-09-2012 01:11

AdamHeard

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

Would you rather see those same robots accomplish nothing on the field?

Making picklist at events is rough, it pretty quickly hits a point where robots are really barely able to do anything.

This is an unfortunate fact; these teams aren't all made of dumb, lazy, unmotivated people, but the robots just don't perform. It makes you wonder whether or not their build strategy is flawed.

14-09-2012 04:52

Gray Adams

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

The Apollo 1 crew was killed in the cabin while still on the ground. You could say the mission failed where it counted and it was a complete failure, no? I certainly wouldn't say that everything else behind that mission was flawed though.

14-09-2012 13:54

philso

Re: pic: REX (Team 4334 - Alberta Tech Alliance)

All teams should stretch to do something they have not done before, regardless of what they have done in the past. That is how teams like 118 never fail to impress with their technical prowess (even when their solution is ruled illegal). The goals need to take into account the resources available and the abilities of the team members. The value in "failure" is the opportunity to learn from the mistakes and improve one's decision making process. However, to learn from those mistakes, one must posess enough background knowlege to determine what went wrong. When one grossly over-reaches and fails, one may as well conclude that it was due to someone using "the dark arts" against them.

The team I was working with this past season is one where they would have been better off with more "modest" goals. They had limited resources and few team members committed to doing the work (2 out of 15). At the two regionals they attended, they spent much of their time lurching around the field, trying to drive straight. Eventually, they got good enough at driving that when they were asked to play defence against 67 in their last match at Archimedes to hopefully help 973 advance to the elimnation rounds.

They needed to focus on understanding how to do some of the basics such as drive train design and control and how to use some basic sensors. Fortunately, we were able to convince the the team that they should not try to design and build a turret. The team members who lacked of focus and commitment used rather haphazard design processes and did not learn how to analyze a problem make proper design decisions. The team's chances of learning from their mistakes are further diminished since a large percentage of the team, including their one programmer, has graduated. They are probably best to keep their goals modest for the forseeable future.