I’ve been to a district event and watched several more online, but I have yet to see a Low Efficiency Boiler Bot scoring the low goal.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen a couple really good low efficiency boiler bots… they can dump their load about three to four times as fast as most of the high shooters, and with pretty good accuracy. It’s just that they haven’t had the chance to play yet.
I’m also thinking that a low-goal scorer could keep a good high goal scorer stocked with fuel.
Anyone seen either a good low goal scorer filling the low-efficiency boiler, or refueling a high shooter? Any suggestions on matches to watch on Blue Alliance?
We have created the MCC (without actually intending to create it. We didn’t follow what 1323 did n the video we just ended up with that robot. It just has a different drive train and hanger) but we’d rather feed other bots than waste time with the low efficiency boiler. Mostly we run gears.
245, the Adambots, were fairly effective at scoring in the low goal at the FIM District - Kettering University #1 event. And while the low efficiency boiler is really not worth the time and effort of trying to score in it, they did an excellent job of doing it when they needed to. You can see them score roughly 40 fuel in the low boiler at around 1:55 in qualification 24.
I don’t remember the number, but there were at least 2-3 teams playing the low-efficiency boiler in Orlando. One pretty clearly had adapted their high-goal shooter to dump low in autonomous and land those 3.33 kPa.
We have low goal capability. I think in all of our matches at Hub City we scored between 4-8 balls total. So I’ll say 2/3 of a KPa (so no points). There was also a time where I fired the mechanism by mistake, launching balls in the neutral zone, which is a five point penalty.
So at the moment our low goal mechanism has a value of -4 and 1/3 points or -5 points if you want to be real and make me feel bad about it.
We have a low goal dumping robot. Scores about 40 balls at a time. Worked perfect in scrimmages and testing, but we never had a chance to use it at our regional. Ended up removing most of the system to save weight when our climber suddenly stopped working right before Elims.
For this year we shot to build an efficient low goal scorer. We had an efficient collection and dump method. We could dump 40 balls in 15-20 seconds, when we got to competition however it didn’t matter. Gears were all that mattered, we could not get enough points fast enough to make it worth our time. It was very disappointing. We have to now burn our 6 hours revamping our gears and climber.
At the risk of derailing the thread: Is that 15-20 seconds figure the act of collecting and dumping them, or just of releasing them into the low-efficiency boiler?
15-20 seconds is a long time to dump 40 balls. If you’re taking that long to dump into the low boiler, then you defeat the purpose of a low goal in the first place really.
We have the ability to dump in the low goal, we actually designed for it. But it has never been used in competition and we’d like to keep it that way :).
We attempted to do fuel in a qualification match at South Florida just for fun and the dumper didn’t activate because there were too many in our hopper. So we climbed, the match ended and as the volunteers began to remove the fuel the system finally fired sprayed fuel everywhere. It was actually really funny.
With the insanely low value of the low goal (5-6 pts per trip on average) and the number of ties in elims matches …
In hindsight I think they should have just put the low goal fuel intake on the ground, making it the ‘free points’ teams get every match. Even then a low-efficiency scorer could make a HUGE difference in a match.
We had a few matches where we dumped in the low goal during autonomous before getting the mobility bonus. It’s not designed and not worth it in teleop, but it can’t hurt in autonomous if someone else has a better center gear auto (we don’t have a side peg auto working).
At San Francisco, 3256 was capable of low-goaling, but never used it except for during playoffs against alliances without any fuel-handling capabilities. They just took the 10 preloaded balls and scored them in teleop for 1 easy point in case of a tie.
QF3-1 and SF2-2 here: https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/3256#2017casf They didn’t score in QF3-2 and SF2-1 due to a slight mistake, and not in Finals because the 1 point wouldn’t have made a difference.