Hey everyone. Sorry if this has already been posted, but I was just curious about something I noticed from recycle rush. This was before my time, as I’m a current senior (very sad indeed) but I noticed almost all of the robots from that year’s game were tethered to something with ethernet I’m assuming. Why? I thought that tethering wasn’t allowed in frc. Excuse me if I’m misinformed, and thanks in advance.
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If you’re referring to teams having ramps they are tethered to, those were usually steel cable and static. The rules that year did not prohibit any maximum dimension during gameplay except height, IIRC, so enterprising teams realized they could tether a ramp to make stacking easier.
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As Zuelu562 mentioned above, there was no “maximum” dimensions other than height (78 inches). However, you did have to fit your robot within a constrained “transport configuration” of 28x42x78, but the robot could leave the transport configuration once you get to the field. The “tethering” in this context is a physical connection from, say a ramp, to the “main” part of the robot. The tethering in other contexts is having an ethernet connection to the robot on the field to enable / change code / etc pre-match.
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Correct. While Recycle Rush did away with many of the usual robot operation rules like maximum expansion, the “no detaching parts” rule was still in effect. The way the chutes worked, it was very easy for a tote to faceplant or land upside-down, which few robots could handle. A passive chute was an easy addition for teams that could fit it into their transport configuration, but it meant running a rope or cable to the ramp so it was still “part of your robot”.
Some teams had active second halves to their robot, like the Robowranglers’ Batman and Robin that allowed them to build up stacks on one side while the other half placed the previous stack. This was seriously advanced game, and one of the things I loved about Recycle Rush.
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that sounds really incredible. a lot of my older friends in frc usually tell me how they really disliked 2015, but based on that it seemed like a really complicated game. thanks.
I’m sure I’ll be corrected as soon as I say this, but I think that while the community generally agrees that this was not a great game to watch or to play, it was a great engineering challenge that allowed a lot of creative freedom. Considering the design convergence of some FRC games, RR was a change of pace that allowed for some really off the wall robots.
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Recycle Rush is one of the best games ever. Don’t let @Ryan_Swanson tell you differently!
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That’s gonna be a hard no from me Matt.
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It was a very bad game to play once you got to events. It was a pretty cool design challenge, honestly.
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Then it would have been perfect if we could have switched 2015 and 2020
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To add to the origins of tethering, I remember different people having tossed around the idea, but the first true example that solidified the term was 148’s robot, Batman and Robin. After a few comps, teams started to see the benefits of having a “leave in place” ramp had, so they would create tethered ramps with anything from steel cable to rope to electrical extension cords tied in a knot. Thus, tether bots came to be a more generalize term.
If case you’re interested, here is an FTC tether bot
The audacity of 148 to build that robot…
I had never been so blown away by a reveal video before. Definitely one of the most incredible machines built in FRC.
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Absolutely concur. There was so much stupid about that game on so many levels. 148 wound up giving up on “Alfred”, their Recycle Container gatherer because their strings were “too thin” for the inspectors to recognize as obviously being another part of the same robot. On the other hand, their early example inspired many others, including Houston’s “Jersey Voltage” which I got to see first hand; they literally called their tethered robot halves “Ratman” and “Bobbin”. There were also robots (at least in Israel) with no drivetrains that year, not even climbing drivetrains, which carried game pieces along tracks rather than picking them up.
Multiple teams ended up debuting powered tethered robots at the same time. If I remember correctly, 4039 essentially put their spare elevator on a platform in order to make a remote stacker. 1285 took this concept to an extreme by having two completely independent, driveable robots connected via tether. If that 2 robot concept was further developed, it could have been the fastest 4 can auto in the world.
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My tether concept was that the stacker (Robin) would be almost entirely pneumatic and the driver (Batman) almost entirely electric, but my team was unable to deliver (though we did get our first ever ticket to CMP!).
Removing a design constraint like max dimensions led to some cool innovation as others have mentioned. Check out team 1212 in this video. They had two “identical” robots that were tied together via tether.
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