Recorded can burglar times and special thanks after CMP

Technical Technical Discussion
1

Since I don’t want to clutter the forums I figured I’d post these two threads under the same title. First off, I spent all of thursday, and friday recording can grabbers on newton, and all of saturday recording grabbers on other fields during elims. I recorded at 120 fps with a samsung galaxy S6, then went back and counted frames for each grabber to try to get accurate speeds. Because of the fact that 120fps recording gives me a time resolution of 8.3ms I rounded times to the closest 10 or 5 ms increments so times aren’t perfectly accurate. The other thing to note is that I didn’t have a way to know exact enable times for matches that we (1678) didn’t play in so I don’t know exactly how long grabbers took to startup. Our triggers took about 2 frames (~15ms) to fire when tested off the field so that was the only robot I had an accurate initialization time for. All times for recorded grabbers are posted below.

Since I have your attention I’d also like to give some special shoutouts to the teams I got interact with on the field and in the stands. First shoutouts go to 118, 1671, and 5012 for being the best alliance I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. Getting to pair up with the 3 top ranked teams at sacramento and 5012, a team recommended by 987/148 themselves, was unbelievable.

118 is the most organized, and on-the-ball team I’ve ever met, their scouts knew every team inside and out which made our friday night meeting a breeze. Their drive team in particular was a class act and strategical insights we didn’t even consider before teaming with them at sacramento. And finally of course, their mentors who I had the pleasure of joining for dinner. I’ve never learned so much before about building a successful and lasting program like theirs.

1671 is a team we’ve long looked up to for their success with chairman’s award and was certainly part of the inspiration that pushed us to kick up our outreach program. I’m sure we’ll meet many times in the future and I’m eager to see you guys again soon. #StACkRAMENTO (credit to mike for that one)

5012 is a team that reminds me of our own back in 2011. Before then we were a team that struggled to make eliminations in regionals, but making it to worlds that year motivated us like no other. Despite not being in any matches you were the biggest secret weapon we had. The time you guys put into cheesecaking your bot with a can grabber, and a second tethered set made sure we were prepared for whatever got thrown our way, if we met 1114 in the finals you guys certainly would have been the best shot we had. You guys are clearly on your way up to ranks and I’m sure your accolades of recommendations from 987 and 148 say more than I could about you.

Several other teams I met in particular: 987 were great sports every time I ran into them and loved to talk field-side between matches when I was there. 148 a great bunch as always and I’m glad to see a lot of friendly faces after spending so much time with them in 2013. 254, 973, ad 971, the norcal homies. These teams were great, offering to help us out in pits (and cleaning up after, the part no one wants to do) when they dropped out due to some very bad luck and unfortunate mishaps. 1114 for being great sports and hanging out with me on the sidelines while I watched their matches on Curie, and Karthik in particular for taking his own valuable time to chat with me and to give a fantastic presentation that somehow manages to get better every year. Finally a big thanks to our favorite rookies (and 2nd years) 5458, 5027, and 5529 who helped us realize that FIRST isn’t just about our own team.

Finally, some can burglar numbers for those who I teased in the beginning. These times are all hook-to-the-can. I’m not putting time-to-unstealable because it’s hard to tell how far the can needs to tip for the other team to not be able to grab it. All times were recorded from the first movement of any robot on the field (doesn’t account for enable delays between driver stations). Keep in mind there may always be some recording errors, I tried to do the best I could.

In no particular order:

1114 harpoons - 105 milliseconds (word of mouth)
1114 2 can - 350 ms
971/254/973 cheesecake - 175 ms
148/1923 cheesecake - 175 ms
1678 (4 wraps, on the field) - 175 ms
1678 (5 wraps, pits) - 158 ms
987 - 290 ms
3310 - 205 ms
5027 - 266 ms
2056 - 250 ms
3940 - 300 ms
1918 - 225 ms
1711 - 370 ms
330 - 400 ms
2046 - 350 ms
3339 - 470 ms
368 - 370 ms
1983 - 480 ms
166 - 400 ms

I accidentally deleted some videos but I think I recall a couple of times for some teams I recorded, give me a heads up if I made any mistakes:

67 - 205 ms
118 - 205 ms
548 - 205 ms
16 - 350 ms?

2

Congratulations! 1678 and 118 are two of the most deserving teams in FRC and huge sources of inspiration for me and 316.

What does “wraps” mean? Surgical tubing? Do you mind sharing some photos of your grabbers?

-Mike

3

Without any wraps of spear gun tubing we’re .18 seconds, with the two wraps we used in elims we’re .15 seconds. We can go up to eight wraps but never had a need to.

4

We (842) had tape measure can burglars and they got the cans at .25 seconds (or a little less). Here is video from the practice field at champs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMEb661Rqr0

I personally do not have a good video from the actual field in Curie.

5

Thanks Jake - excellent data!
Are the original videos available anywhere?

6

First of all, huge congrats to 1678, 118, 1671, and 5012 for winning their 1st ever world championship banners. Much deserved and easily years overdue for several of you guys. Amazing job!

We knew 1678 and 118 had two of the fastest and most reliable can burglar setups demonstrated prior to champs and we were well aware they were also working on improvements to be unleashed in St. Louis. We worked progressively on our Can-Ninjas design throughout competition season for eventual deployment at Champs. We were hoping to have the opportunity to place our Can-Ninjas opposite either and/or both of you guys on the big stage on Saturday, but that honor may have to wait until IRI. Our second set was being installed on our great partners from 3847, and unfortunately never got the chance to take the field.

Here’s video of these can assassins operating in peak form in QF8 on Tesla field…unfortunately, this was the last chance they had at deployment that day. We are still working on pulling an exact time relative to the other great teams you listed, but they should be somewhere in the 200ms ballpark.

UPDATE: Upon further analysis, it looks like we are actually closer to the 300ms timeframe. The best footage we have is at around 30 fps, so its not the most accurate, by any stretch.

7

This is actually the first time I have heard how fast our step grabber is, I had no idea it was so fast. We had some mechanisms to make it even faster but they ended up not working out.

8

The sting of defeat goes away when you watch your friends succeed. As soon as we saw that 118 and 1678 managed to land 1671 with their second pick (were Newton scouts napping…?), we knew that you were the favorites. What an alliance.

118, you have provided the FIRST world with immeasurable inspiration through the years, and it is fantastic to see you finally get to the top of the mountain with your incredible machine. I was having horrific flashbacks to 2012 when I saw you were having some comms issues, but you powered through and did what it took to win.

1678, what else can I say? Your team and all of its accomplishments are proof that the competition aspect of FRC holds such amazing power to change the world. Yes, you have blue banners and trophies…but anyone who has ever been on an alliance with 1678, or any of the countless teams whose robots have been improved by Citrus Circuits, or anyone who has watched you receive GP award after GP award, or anyone who has ever talked to your students, knows that your rise to dominance has dragged behind it a wake of inspiration and improvement in everything and everyone you touched along the way.

1671, what a steal you were! Your robot has more than doubled in effectiveness since CVR, and you were the key piece of the puzzle that set this alliance apart.

5012, while you may have been on the sidelines, your pragmatic approach to the game and willingness to do anything to win will pay incredible dividends for your team.

9

Wraps is the number of wraps of surgical tubing on each side of each arm. Through all of Elims on saturday we ran the arms with 4 wraps on each side (16 total). I don’t have pictures of our grabber at the moment but you can PM me and I can send/post some pictures when our robot gets back. The design was pretty straight forward. The mechanism was a four bar linkage with surgical tubing pulling two opposite corners together which drove the arm forward.

I heard you guys were stupid fast but I never managed to get any footage of you which I was disappointed about.

I had one video of you guys but I started filming a little too late so the video starts when you guys are about half way to the can, your grabbers were super fast though.

I can upload video if people want it, as of right now I have about 4 gb of video but I can just upload the clips from saturday since that’s where 90% of this data came from.

10

This alliance was full of inspiration for me.

118 - Best team I have ever seen, hands down. I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with all of their students, and their team is nothing short of amazing. Cheering them on was the highlight of this championship for me, their win was long overdue.

1678 - In 2013, 624 failed to qualify for the world championships. I had TBA up on my TV, and I was watching all 4 fields intently, from my house. When it came around to the Curie alliance selections, I saw what looked like one of the coolest logos in FIRST in the number one alliance captain position - it was the Citrus Circuits. Immediately afterwards, they must have gone through 3 or 4 of the biggest names in the field, who all declined them, choosing to form their own alliances. 1678 fought hard, and made it to Einstein anyway that year. The next year, they came into CMP as an assisting machine, locking up the number one seed, cruising onto Einstein again, proving 2013 was no fluke. Then in 2015, they’re back again, with the most dominating can grabbers to take the field this year! To see how quickly they’ve rose to the challenge is really inspiring, and this Championship win was well deserved.

1671 - What an awesome robot. To imagine they almost missed out on CMP this year…I really wanted to see that autonomous in action though. They were the lock holding the alliance together, quietly putting up their 42 point stacks in the background. I enjoyed watching 1671 compete at Sacramento and still can’t get over how they were able to pick you up on that alliance…

5012 - Beautiful looking bot with an awesome team behind it. I’m sure big things will be coming from the Gryffingear House soon!

11

Jake has said most of what I would say. I’d like to add just a couple of extra notes.

A shout out to Lucien, mentor on 118. This is the first time that we’ve gotten to sit in on another team’s drafting and strategy session. Lucien ran an entertaining and productive draft session that kept the students fully engaged. Wow!

And to 1671. Amazingly this is the first time we have been allied with them despite facing them twice a year every year. That we could get the robot as our 2nd pick that we most feared in our division was truly amazing. Along with 118, 1671 and us had gone 1-2-3 in qualifying in Sacramento. (Why didn’t the announcer call us the “Sacramento Power Alliance?”) Birdbrains had improved tremendously over the season, and they were willing to take risks. They went for the win in Sacramento rather than just trying to reach the finals, and fortunately they qualified through Chairmen’s. And again on Newton they risked added an auton which would have made them formidable. Just ran out of time. They were able to get back to their Sacramento configuration and we were off. We never had to bring out our cheesecake. (And I talk about 5012 in their thank you thread.) We have been working more closely with 1671 and look forward to an even better relationship.

12
13

2 bins… And you could’ve done more!

14

yup… I think it’s a good lesson for us that we need to analyze the game better for the highest level. This contraption was designed and built in about 3 weeks and even then we were building the second at competition and still dialing in. Maybe an elastic powered tape measure and designing the robot to take 4 would have been a better strategy week 1 of build season but this was a fun Hail Mary that might have worked out with a bit more luck.

15

No data on 225? I’m interested to find out how fast our canburglar is, as we hadn’t timed it since MAR Champs, and it had been sped up by about 200ms since then…well we have 240fps from a mentor’s iPhone of every match that we used the canburglar in so I’ll have to take a look.

16

I actually did get you on video but you were in one of the clips I accidentally deleted. I don’t remember your exact speed but you and 67 were very close, within a couple of frames IIRC.

17

Ah ok, thanks, that’s fun to know :smiley: