Teams are currently deciding between using the rung, building ramps, relying on others to have ramps, or some other way of achieving the goal of climbing. A question I have is:
What percentage of teams will be able to climb the rungs regardless of their partners if that rung were left clear of any other bots.
See stronghold 10-15%
Unlike stronghold though, this year you have other options for achieving the same thing by different methods.
Also teams have the advantage of being able to look at successful mechanisms from 2016 and just use those. I think the percentage will be slightly higher than stronghold, but not by much.
We plan to reuse mechanism actions from 2015/16 with a slight twist.
With Levitate it’ll be higher but not really a physical climb to 7’ (and stronghold had 3 bars)
I think LIP in 2016 made it hard
I think up to three using same rung in 2018 is hard
So wash.
If we throw in Levitate then 2018 will be higher but that is not “using rung”
And a Ranking point. Kinda important to boost those in quals…
I would hope close to 100%. It would be nice to see lots of robots with simple simulated rungs that can be deployed after/during their climb.
I think we will see a pretty large percent of climbing robots which view a solo climb as “the challenge” in and of itself, without thought to how their bot’s presence may block other teams. I suspect that, perhaps correctly, most teams will view multiple teams climbing in a match to be a rarity, and judge it to be better to guarantee themselves an easy 30 points than to pursue a potentially challenging design that could enable 60/90
A good parallel to look at may be 30 point climbers in 2013, and the percent which made the challenge easier by occupying the inner part of the tower and blocking off any other similar 30 point climbs.
I hope I am wrong. I want to see suspension-capable designs, and I want to see ramp-bots as well. I hope these concepts see some increased “publicity” in some form or another.
Yeah but there’s no playoff bonus which really makes me wonder how many teams will actually care enough to make a rung climber.
You still gotta win those Qual to make it to playoffs. 30 points is going pretty large chuck compared to avg qual scores.
You can make playoffs and win a regional without ever winning a qual match.
Any previous examples of this ever occurring in FRC?
I expect more than for STRONGHOLD. There’s no low bar to design around, and there’s an independent reason to be able to reach to about 7’ off the floor (to reclaim the scale). Put a hook on the end of that arm or lift with a cable, and reel it in. Getting a second robot up at the same time will be the real challenge. Many alliance selections this year will depend on who’s compatible with whom on the dual (or triple) climb.
Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence blah blah
I don’t think anyone done it, but 973 in 2014 and 971 in 2009 come to mind as teams that came close to going 0-x in qual.