Sitting here, enjoying a sleep-in day following the LA Regional, and not wanting to grade the papers that have piled up for the last couple of weeks, I’ve starting thinking about strategy in FRC.
My team was stressed just making a collector and shooter that worked together. Many other teams had awesome collectors, shooters, bridge manipulators… some of which were dual purpose. And it got me thinking. If a future game were rather complex, with 3 or more objectives in a match, would having separate, interchangeable modules be beneficial?
Each module could be more robust and heavy because it isn’t sharing space/weight with 2 or more other systems. It might also help foster team work between alliance members.
This could be of most use during elimination rounds. I noticed a lot of alliances where only one robot was shooting, another was only going for the bridge, and the third was just playing defense… but all had almost identical hardware, some of which was taking up space and making them top-heavy. (saw several tall shooters on their sides in the elimination rounds yesterday)
Just a thought I was having. Costs and possible cheating might be the biggest prohibitive elements of the idea. But I think its cool.
Along the same idea, in 2007 our robot had removeable carbon fiber ramps that we would use or remove depending on our alliance. If our alliance had a ramp bot, we would remove them for visibility and focus on scoring, if we didn’t have a good ramp bot, we’d score and then lower the ramps and lift our partners.
It was a nice feature that we could add or remove on a match by match basis if needed.
On the topic, i’ve always imagined that an awesome game would include multiple game pieces of many shapes. Say inner tubes, balls, and tetras. Causing teams to either have to focus on one type, some kind of complex system to manage all 3, or modular systems for managing game pieces depending on your alliance partners. I thought this might be the year during kickoff when they kept showing all the old game pieces, but turns out that’s not the case.
Don’t forget the the different modules all count toward the 120 pound limit in [R03], whether they get used or not. Still, it can be a benefit to remove weight, especially if it’s up high.
Long ago there was no explicit rule about modular robots—the de facto standard was that whatever was on the field had to meet the rules. But for the past several years (perhaps around 2004 or so, if I had to guess), the requirement has been that every module intended for use on the robot (this year’s standard is “all additional Mechanisms that might be used in different configurations of the Robot”) must be counted toward the weight, whether or not it is currently attached. The rule is similar for cost accounting.
This has led to some interesting questions of exactly when the intent/capability to use a module is formed (at design-time, at inspection-time, at match-time, etc.), but that aspect of the rule hasn’t been thoroughly explored in terms of pre-prepared modules. One way this has been explored, however, is the replacement of modules with COTS items.
Another peril of modular robots is the question of when a module becomes too much like a robot for the officials’/GDC’s liking. According to that ruling, there is some ill-defined line between a complex module and a second robot, irrespective of whether the entire system meets the modularity rules.
Also note that those are based on old rules which have not necessarily been retained verbatim in this year’s rulebook. You should probably ask this year’s Q&A (or at least the officials at your event) if you want to try something like this.
A great idea in theory, but remember that all modules have to be weighed and have to be included as part of your 120 lb total. So three different 10 lb modules now represent 30 lbs of your maximum allowed. You would need to have a light weight base/drive train but it is certainly possible if your modules are also light weight…
Excellent points. I guess I envisioned what the old FRC rules (which I was previously ignorant concerning) that what was on the field had to make weight. It would be very complicated to inspect and weight teams if each had their own format of modular interfaces. Making everything fall under the weight limits simplifies matters for FIRST.
I think the future will present some interesting modular robotic systems for consumer use. If a manufacturer were to partner with FIRST and help form a standardized method of interfacing modules, possible with some sort of shared ID between parts to discourage swapping modules, it could provide for some interesting games.
I like this idea. During a time in which many engineering companies (especially aerospace) are attempting to modularize their products (to reduce cost, etc) and establish standards, teaching students about modularization would be very beneficial.
I could imagine a rule where mechanism swap-out must take <5 minutes, so the robots would have to be designed to accommodate different mechanisms/payloads with the same robot bus. Wire harnessing, structural attachments, etc would all come into play, and this idea would push pre-match strategy even further.
When mechanisms break, swapping it out with a different type for the next match – while the pit crew works to rebuild the broken mechanism – would also make queuing run more smoothly. It gives the pit crew something to do while the robot is in a match, at the very least.