I got the idea for this thread when I was talking to a student from Triple Strange about old robots when they mentioned their 2018 robot could also pick up boulders. That’s when it hit me that a lot of the designs this year (especially shooterbots and switch/exchange specialists) shared a lot in common with robots from that game. Traditional scalebots might even be better at high goals as all they would have to do would be to drive up to the goal, extend up and spit the cube in. Climbing in both power up and stronghold was also basically the same thing but Stronghold’s bar was far bigger and there was one for every robot. Let’s say for this hypothetical question intakes can have the minor adjustments they would need to pick up boulders (if they can’t already) and rules restricting these designs are not enforced.
Because of the platform slanting away from the bar in stronghold, I don’t think we would be able to attach to the bar with the current design of our climber.
No 2018 robot would be able to reliably do defenses.
Basically nobody could go under the low bar.
Our 2018 robot would have a real tough time with the rough terrain, rock wall, and ramparts (we had enough of a time with the ramp edge of the scale…) I’d be very worried about tipping over due to the angle of the cheval de fries, but maybe if we went slowly…
Maybe we could have adapted our fork mechanism to open the gate or lift the portcullis.
Our 2016 robot was built low-bar capable with big pneumatic tires, a way-overengineered chassis, and a drivetrain optimized for smashing through the defenses, catching air along the way. But, it did not climb and wasn’t designed to shoot high.
https://i.imgur.com/M5PxuKF.gif
We’ve been practicing for this exact situtuation… 
I’m pretty sure we could go under the low bar, but other defenses wouldn’t work. We would have done better in 2016 with our 2018 shooter robot, as we had a low goal then (and still got rookie all-star).
Ironically I think there are many who would be able to do the drawbridge or sally port.
This basically sums up our 2016 robot also. Our 2018 robot on the other hand probably wouldn’t handle stronghold very well. I’d be worried for the omni wheels on the front of it if we tried to cross a defense.
I second this.
The MilkenKnights 2018 robot can pick up and place Recycle Rush cans
Also, I’m confident that the 2018 1902 robot would be a top tier low goal bot in 2016.
To be fair, your robot this year was extremely similar to your stronghold robot!
I really like the concept. I wonder how the bots would fare going over the defenses however.
Switch bots for the most part have little trouble, especially ones small enough to go under the low bar. But the Scale bots, without testing I can’t be completely accurate but for the most part it seems the robots would tip. These bots were not built to go over obstacles they were built for flat ground (plus a slight incline to get to the rung.) It would be the bots with the low center of gravity that would fare best.
But seriously, off season competition anyone? I want to at least watch this.
I think if you had an entire regional of teams that thought they were going to play Power Up and then found out as soon as they got there that the game was Stronghold, you would probably see some surprisingly effective gameplay and strategies.
First off, shooter bots would dominate. By being able to cycle the high goal quickly and by being short, they would more or less just play the game normally. Scale bots with elevators would also be able to work effectively if they can toss the ball a decent distance into the high goal.
Many of the defenses would go untouched, and you would rarely see a defense RP show up. The most crossed ones would be the sally port, drawbridge, and portcullis, since elevator bots would be able to effectively move and cross those.
:ahh:
That’s very close to penalty territory - glad you didn’t hit!
We actually had to warn our drive team. In 2016 and 2017 our robots were overbuilt, low to the ground, and had no exposed mechanisms. We could – and often did – smash into field elements or other robots at full speed. Whether playing defense or having brutal defense played on us, the robot could take it.
This year we had to tell the drive team to be much more gentle with it, and there were a few “avoid at all cost” scenarios. Getting clotheslined by the scale at full speed, or tipping over such that our elevator took a direct hit, would surely result in broken belts or bent rails. Other teams playing hard defense on us sometimes resulted in damage to the intake end stops which made it very difficult to intake cubes.
Their robot was one of the best for exchange and switch in Hopper this year.
Ironically I think our 2018 robot would be better at Stronghold than our 2016 robot at the end of their respective regular seasons! ::ouch::
Same, our 2016 robot was effectively unusable by the end of the season.
I think we’d actually be able to handle a good number of defenses. We built an “optional” bearing hole into the chassis so that we could give ourselves a 10 wheel drive if the platform ended up being an issue. Not a ton of ground clearance, but I think if we built up some speed we could clear the rough terrain, moat, and rock wall. The intake (with a boulder in it) could probably be used to push the cheval down pretty effectively. Opening the sally port would be a breeze, and the robot just wouldn’t fit under the low bar or through the drawbridge. (I think I’m missing one more defense, it’s been so long!)
We could probably hit the target pretty reliably, but we’d need to rig a camera up to the intake and the programmers would need to work some fast magic.
Climbing seems like we could get it working if we had some time on practice day to play with some stuff.
I think some lower COG elevator bots with over-the-bumpers intakes could manage the chival prety well. If you remove 254’s elevator but keep the intake and it’s pivot, they’re basically a low goal bot.
Probably only able to cross low bar, chival, draw bridge, and sally port though. I don’t know what you guy’s ground clearance is like, but I bet it’s not 2016-high.
Just checked out last night to see if one of the boulders could fit in our intake. If we took our climber off, we could do the low bar. Our intake took in and held the boulder surprisingly well. Shooting it out was even more of a success. We could definitely do the low goal but not the high goal. I guess we could use our 2018 robot in 2016 if we really wanted to and we could time travel!