High score of the season

FIRST General Forum
#18

Do note that 469 is still pretty good when acting like a “normal” robot, as well. They typically are clearing balls out of the neutral zone in autonomous before they go into the tunnel (and sometimes scoring them) and in QF1-2 they left the tunnel due to a ball jam and scored a ball from the neutral zone during tele-op.

If the other alliance wants to commit a robot to wedging itself into the tunnel in order to stop 469, they’ll then have to try and win a match 2v3. I don’t like those odds very much, either.

#19

Is this not the “God bot” strategy everyone said would never work:rolleyes: . Props to 469 for being brave enough to try it and for being awesome enough to perfect it.

#20

Does anyone have any video of this amazing match?

#21

the reason no one can move them is that they have a springboard that goes under the tunnel and actually lifts up on the tower. They are effectively wedged in their position. This actually causes a problem; In one of the semis or finals (I dont remeber) they lifted the tower so much that the balls wouldnt roll down the return rails… so chickens decided to high speed ram it and bend it all out of wack in order to get them to come down… but no penalties were called so they were all good.

#22

I threw together a quick drawing of what 469’s robot essentially does. It’s my best interpretation of things after watching a few Cass Tech matches.

#23

You can catch some of 469 here, but none of it as impressive as their semifinal and final matches.

Match 28 00:07:45
Match 34 01:04:56 (they can be defended against!)
Match 39 01:58:54

Much of what they did in the elims was off camera in these matches.

#24

“Someone will be able to stop them. Get to tower first and have traction wheels. They do have to cross field and other side starts right next to tower. There will be alot of code being written because of them. The 469 code.”

I’m on 2185 who played against 469 twice. The first time we played, we successfully made an auton to keep them out of the tunnel. They were unable to set up their mechanism so I guess we could be one of the first teams to make a 469 code. Our robot is built for traction so it worked well.

Unfortunately, the second time we played them was in the 25-1 match in the semifinals but oh well.

Congrats team 469 on a great design.

#25

Lol robowranglers have the exact same one as 217 its gonna be insane at nationals

#26

Correct me if I’m wrong, but any tank tread drive should be able to push them around, assuming that is that 469 doesn’t have treads.

#27

Ok before i get railed with neg rep and all other fun things that will come with this post. I want to say i am truly asking this because i do not fully understand 469 robot. I watched video( http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497) today of 469 and to me it looks like a clear violation of rule r19. The rule was addressed with gdc. ( http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=14077 ) Is the ramp they build not a MECHANISM???:confused: If it is not then i know where i am wrong.

#28

The ramp is a mechanism, but the ball never more than within 3" of it, so therefor it is not a penalty. Per the last sentence of the Q&A you quoted:

A situation where the BALL traverses “inside” the robot boundaries (e.g. as it falls from the BALL RETURN and bounces off the top of the ROBOT), but does not enter a MECHANISM by more than the permitted 3 inches, would not be PENALIZED

Since you told me to correct you, I will. Treads don’t automatically mean more traction. And beyond that, they have a mechanism designed to wedge them into position once they reach the tunnel.

#29

I’ll elaborate on their design.

First - they’re autonomous kicks the two balls from the middle zone into the goal on their way to the tower. This primes the system to recycle balls.

Second - they’ve got traction wheels. Someone here says they do well when not locked on - that really isn’t very true. They have difficulty turning, aren’t very fast, and can’t do much of anything if defended. That isn’t a knock on their bot. Frankly, it’s incredibly effective at what is does. There is NO OTHER WAY you’re going to average 1 ball every 4 seconds.

Third - they physically lock onto the tower. With large aluminum plates onto the bar. They push the center platform up because they drive into the bar to lock on and their front lifts up when they do lock as a result of their wheels still driving. There’s pretty much no point in trying to move them - in fact they moved the entire field twice when they were locking on.

Fourth - you can block them. You have to travel partially into the tunnel at an angle. A number of teams were at the practice field programming auton to do exactly that. Once you stop them from locking in, there no better (and in fact a bit worse) than many other bots. They have a good kicker and a good ball sucker, but they are slow-slow-slow. Don’t count on that continuing long though - they’re Las Guerillas after all.

Fifth - Corey, there were good teams at Cass Tech. However, the Guerilla’s have a reasonably simply answer to that. The person in their offensive zone plays DEFENSE on the bot there. That way the guerillas can shoot to the clear side of the field. They had occasional problems during qualifications when they didn’t have a good offensive partner to get the balls in to get the cycle started, or if they missed their shot in auton.

Editted to make it more polite:

There were many good teams there that got squished by 469’s system. Saying that teams there didn’t provide decent competition is rather poor form, very unfair, and entirely untrue.

#30

This strategy has countermeasures, but seems like something extremely tricky. I don’t want to call choke-hold just yet though. I want to see a team park wide in front of the tunnel, perfectly centered, for example. Alternately, defense of the return or initial ball hoarding.

#31

I didn’t mean to imply that they’re great when not in the tower. But if you watch Qual34 (linked earlier in the thread), you can see them score 4 goals (all from the middle zone) and advance one more when not in the tower. That’s not incredible, but it’s certainly a solid performance. That’s certainly good enough to be on most elimination alliances, and tip the favor of the match towards their alliance (considering the other alliance will essentially be playing down a member).

Granted, I don’t pretend to have as in depth a knowledge of the machine as people as the event. Their strategy and design are certainly very dependent on their partners for success. It will be interesting to see how effective they are moving forward.

#32

Match 28: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497/highlight/55850
Match 34: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497/highlight/55851
Match 39: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5391497/highlight/55852

It appears they only redirect in the first of these three matches and the camera doesn’t actually show them redirecting :frowning:

#33

If your defender can get balls out of the infinite loop then you can have some fun with a 2v1 in your mid and home zones. If you can clear zones during auton, they have maximum 3 balls in their loop. With 9 balls in your control, you should be able to at least keep up.

edit: awkward wording

#34
#35

2851 was the only team to develop an auton to stop guerillas, it worked in the quals (match 60, a video would be appreciated :slight_smile: ) we gave our auton code to 313 in playoffs but they got pushed out of the way…guess it shows you need treaded wheels like ours to stand your ground against a bot like that.

O, and seriously, let’s face it, we weren’t winning that match-up lol.
(for reference 313, 2851, 314 vs 217, 469, 2960)

Is it weird that after it was 16-1 our team started cheering for the opposing alliance to break a record? lol

How does 469 not violate <R19>?
#36

That is like saying if you build a high enough robot where the ball does not touch it when it drives over the ball there is no penalty. Its still a 3 inch violation. But even if i am wrong which i left my self to be corrected because there was no clear video of how the robot works I think it breaks the spirit of the rule. My biggest problem with this robot is they wedge themselves under the tower and use a rule meant for hanging to accomplish this task. Its clear they are not trying to hang early.[/quote]

The Q&A clearly stated it’s acceptable to be within 3" of the vertical projection of the frame perimeter, so long as it’s not within 3" of the mechanism.
It’s not the same as driving over the ball, as clearly stated by <R19>

<R19> ROBOTS must be designed so that in normal operation BALLS cannot extend more than 3 inches inside
a) the FRAME PERIMETER below the level of the BUMPER ZONE (see Figure 8-5),
b) a MECHANISM or feature designed or used to deflect BALLS in a controlled manner that is above the level of the BUMPER ZONE.

#37

Not wierd at all, though I wasn’t cheering. I was more staring in disbelief.

At one point they scored SO FAST that balls coming down the return shoot got log-jammed because they touched eachother and stopped rolling. Amazing. The announcer even made a joke of it:

“Don’t worry folks - it’s already 11 to 1, I’m pretty sure they’re going to win no matter what.”

It really was that one sided once they got there - but just like beatty way back when, there are ways to prevent them from getting in place, and a good fast bot CAN catch those balls before they go in and send them down to the other end of the field - but it’s tricky!

Edit: The even sicker part is they continue to score after the game is over. Balls continue to roll down and get returned for the 10 seconds after control is cut, and the score keeps going up.