Just thought we should have a thread and I don’t see one. I saw Kalani (3008) at San Diego this week, looking good. A few other teams are competing at the Oregon Regional next week, so we have some scouting opportunities if the event is webcast.
We will be sending an email to all teams registered for the Hawaii regional (for whom we can find an email address) to introduce our robot (ThunderChicken!), so we can all start thinking about alliance/balancing strategies, etc. If you would like to be sure that you’re included, you can PM me with your contact person’s email and I’ll make sure you get on the list.
Aloha and thanks for making this thread! We had a good time in SD, though we ran into an unbelievable amount of problems with the chain on our drive.
Just a bit curious as to which teams can do the coopertition bridge and alliance bridge as those were the game changers for alliances with low scoring robots.
Also curious as to which teams can herd, the winning alliance had a team that was just a herder and was able to feed balls to their alliance.
GL to all in Hawaii! Can’t wait to compete with you guys!
Great idea to start planning for alliance balancing. The three robot balance is a game changer just like the super fast minibots were last year. We didn’t give as much thought to the balancing challenge as we should have, but we did build a wide bot and we do have a working tilter that we kept as part of our 30 lb allowance so that we could improve it. We tested our tilter on a fully weighted bridge so we should be able to tilt the competition bridge.
Our main balancing issue is that we went with standard AM mecanum wheels so we don’t have much traction on the polycarb. We can climb and balance on our own, but it’s a little dicey. We’re hoping to have a partner with good traction that will slowly “push” us up the bridge for the two robot balance. For a triple balance we’d have to be the middle bot as we don’t have the traction or weight distribution to hang a wheel off the end. Our robot weighs about 110 pounds without bumpers or battery.
Good job in SD Falcons! I felt your pain when you broke down at the end of the quarters. We had drive chain issues throughout the Breakaway game so we know how frustrating that is.
Good luck to the teams going to Oregon! We’ll be rooting for you!
As for the coopertition bridge…what do you guys think about ThirteenOfTwo’s idea posted here with pertinent strategy listed below?
In San Diego, that was the case for many of the qualifying matches. And often times the game changer and the reason why some teams ranked so high. If on a team there were three robots and only one of which could actually score they were more likely to lose if they had to scramble for the bridge in the last 30 seconds. I expect to see much of this for low scoring robots in Hawaii.
Could you explain your tilter mechanism more? Is it for tilting a bridge that has robot on it so you can get onto the bridge? Or, is more like 148’s “foot” or as I like to call it, the “stinger” (since their robot is named Scorpion) that pushes the bridge up while robots are on it?
As for us, Team 2348 has a reasonable tilting mechanism to get onto the bridge and we have the ultrasonic to tell us the correct distance so we aren’t pushing the robot onto our bumper (assuming bridge is not wobbling). We are using mecanum wheels also and can rotate on the bridge to be oriented either way. Our drivers have had some decent practice at our scrimmage, so balancing alone is very likely.
We guarantee 10 in auto with our dunker and use pneumatics to lift our robot which we drive over the bridge to drop it by releasing the pressure and bringing the full weight of the robot on it. We had no problem getting on the bridge with Hilo and Honokaa in our practice sessions in Hilo (two robot balance only). We also added a ball collector which seemed to be a no-brainer but i don’t see many out there in the first two weeks. Its a spinning device with fingers that allows us to collect along our full 28 inches in front so we’re not trying to get that ball into a narrow 11 inch opening which so many teams seem to be doing and not too well. Watch out for the Big Island teams…both honokaa and hilo seem to be able to pop at least 10 in auto and score well. Once hilo zones in, one shot, they pop three pointers time after time. We were able to feed their robot with our arm to reload them. We hope to do it at least once in a practice round to show it off.
We’ll be requesting that one of our alliance partners spend the entire match balancing the bridge every match. If we’re the weakest scorer on our alliance or the only robot with a reliable drive train, it’ll be us going up there, but I’d love to give our driver time to practice scoring in the actual competition. All of our alliances at the tournament will be coopertition-willing.
OK, lettin’ the cat out of the bag here. We have a dumper too. We should be able to get 10 in autonomous pretty much every match (barring unforeseen circumstances, which always seem to occur at competition - perhaps our ‘foresee-ers’ need improvement…).
We have a wedge-type ‘bridge depressor’ that’s pneumatically activated, the wedge allows the weight of the bot to push down the bridge.
Mecanum drive, can go on the bridge long ways, short ways, or drive up and then spin. We have a really nice ‘creep’ mode that makes (solo) balancing a snap. Still waiting to try 2-bot balancing, once we get bumpers on our ‘drive mule’ to serve as a second bot. And the software crew is working on an autobalancer using the gyro.
We certainly will cooperate (coopertiate?) when it is in the best interest of the alliance. Our scorer is reliable but doesn’t hit the top hoop (only middle and lower), so if we have two strong high-scorers we can balance early. Or, since our bot is tallish (59.5") and heavy (close to 120 w/o battery/bumpers), and can score, it might be better for a smaller bot to go to the bridge. Whatever - our drive team will do their best to work with y’all. We can push or be pushed.
One thing, some of the bots I’ve seen on videos seem to have trouble getting traction on the bridge. Maybe it’s our weight, but our mecanums don’t have any problem with the bridge surface. We have lexan or polycarbonate or whatever it’s supposed to be on our practice bridge, and we get pretty good traction (but when powered down, unfortunately, we will slide off a tipped bridge).
Our tilter will only push down an empty bridge. By “fully weighted” I meant that we added the required weight to the low cost plywood bridge to duplicate the force required to push down the competition bridge.
Congratulations to Maui and Baldwin who made it to the finals and semis respectively of the Oregon regional! Both of their alliances were defeated by an alliance that triple balanced in all of their elimination matches except one.
Both Maui and Baldwin appear to be capable bridge balancers. Saw them do numerous doubles. I think Maui was using the Kinect station in hybrid, but I’m not sure what they were trying to do as their robot didn’t move much.
Thank you everyone, we look forward to competing with all of you guys at Hawaii regional.
Yes we can use the kinect or run regular code. The purpose of the kinect was to score 2 baskets, and then drive to the coopertition bridge to get the balls on it. Usually we just get a head start to tip the balls to our side since we run out of time.
I was wondering, what is the force needed to push down the “real” bridge (the one used in the real competition). Also, what is the weight of the “real” bridge?
How many days was that again? I’ll be there Wednesday evening. My wife and I are finally making good on our promise to ourselves to visit Hawaii. We’re going to be staying a few days after the regional ends to see the sights.
Just found out that I don’t have to be doing trial prep (case settled), so now I can really focus on what’s important - ROBOTICS!
#OMGROBOTS!!!
Alan, if you’re coming to the regional, try to find me (Cindy, from the Kauaibots, Team 2465, a/k/a “The Purple Wave”) for a special surprise from our team.
whos excited ?
