Shooting Vs. Time hanging 30

FIRST General Forum
#65

Eh, there’s a way to look at it which assumes equal teleop scoring between the alliances. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that a perfect autonomous (15-discs) is worth just as much as a perfect triple-30 climb? It’s also not a coincidence that both are [mostly] undeniable points – that is, there’s very little that can be done defensively to deny an opponent those points. IMO, they’re both equally difficult too.

Are there potentially 3 teams in the entire world who could band together to pull off 180 undeniable points? Probably – but the selections process probably won’t let that happen. I think the common elite alliance will be able to pull off roughly 120+ undeniable points at the more competitive events, depending on the tradeoffs the engineers had to make for hybrid vs specialized machines. After that it comes down to strategy and raw disc scoring ability.

With that said, specializing and doing nothing else needs to be done on a team-by-team basis. It’s probably the best option for most teams (bottom 4 sigmas of a Gaussian distribution), but alas, most of those “most teams” won’t do it either. You never know, specializing could also fill the niche that 2 ‘powerhouse’ robots need in order to get to 120+.

#66

So which are we more likely to see first: Three teams hanging from the top or a pyramid collapse into a heap of scrap from all the weight?

#67

I agree with the specialization approach. And I also think that when we are evaluating what tasks most teams would be successful at specializing in, the order of tasks ends up prioritized like this:

3 pt shooting

10 pt hang

5 pt shooting

Floor pickup and shooting in autonomous

20 pt hang

30 pt hang

So the 30 pt hang should be at the bottom of the list…but maybe I just say that because I haven’t figured out a way for our team to do it, after two weeks of thinking about it.

#68

Please cite your source for this. They may not have tested robots built by teams, but I would be amazed if they did not build their own robots to test the game and ensure the pyramid was strong enough.

There are many reasons not to hang, but I do not think fear of the pyramid breaking should be one of them.

#69

You didn’t build the actual pyramid, you built the team pyramid. The actual pyramid is welded together and doesn’t have wood and U-bolts holding it together.

#70

Definitely the former. No way something built like that collapses.

#71

I’d be willing to bet that they hung more than three competition weights on it. A steel wielded structure with the specific purpose of hanging robots on it has probably been designed, redesigned, and overdesigned.

#72

It was not from an online source, it was a FIRST FTA.

#73

The pipe is not the problem, the steel pipe can hold plenty of weight. The joints where the couplings slide into each other, that is the weak point.

#74

But looking back it wouldn’t be the first time they had to redesign game after launch, logo motion for example, the pegs for hanging tubes had to be fixed

#75

Ok I think we are getting off topic

I think if you have three robots that just get to the 10pt thats 30pt not including shooting and auto :yikes:

#76

This is the way our team saw it.

Last year, we were pretty lacking on strategy and baiscally went right into design.

Are we shooting? Yes. Are we cooperating? Yes. 3 pt hoop? Yes. Play defense? Yes. Play offence? Yes.

Anyway, we took the more specialized approach this year. We didnt have much success as a shooter in 2012. Yes, we could shoot the threes and twos, but not on a level that made us competitive. Shooting is a variable thing. Lots of things change while you’re shooting. Your surrounding change. Your position will change (Even if we think we’re at the same spot, its easy to be off). The discs themselves will change. To what extent is unknown, but game pieces will change match to match.

What wont change? The pyramid. Our robot. There’s a lot less variables in climbing.

From another angle, how may actions of shooting does it take to get 30 points? Well, you have to get discs, grab them, shoot them, and do that at least 10 times.

Climbing the pyramid is a repeatable, reliable, one time action. It works or it doesn’t. We go to the pyramid and do our climbing. Not having to worry about all these factors (some of them we may not even fully understand) made us go for the pyramid.

#77

I like your thought process (it’s how we did it too, to an extent) and think you have a great strategy. Yet consider that 5 scored autonomous discs are just as repeatable, reliable and quick as pyramid climbing. The only variable is disc warping, but we have a design that accounts for that. Food for thought next year (the GDC has become very good at designing tradeoffs into their games).

#78

We saw this as well, but our lack of success with shooting projectiles last year made us wary of going off and trying to score the big points with that again.

PS Im intrigued on this “accounting for warp” you sneaked in there.

#79

On the pyramid climb: The top zone of the pyramid gets pretty space restrictive, making it seemingly difficult for multiple inside climbers. Three 20 point inside climbers will be tight.

#80

I’d argue that a 10 point hang plus shooting is a faster way to score than just shooting given how achievable the 10 point hang is. I’d compare 30 vs 10 + score 7, not 30 vs score 10.

#81

Our analysis on kickoff was:

A 30-second climb with 20 point dump is acceptable.
A 20-second climb with 20 point dump is good.
A 10-second climb with 20 point dump is great.

A 30-second climb with no dump is okay-ish.
A 20-second climb with no dump is acceptable.
A 10-second climb with no dump is good.

As a great hanger in 2010, it didn’t occur to us until reading CD later that other people wouldn’t be clambering for a climb. Our specific capabilities lend themselves more to climbing than autonomous programming – something we’re working on, of course, because we always want to be better than we are – so as far as priorities we are tending in that direction even though skill-independent strategy leans us the other way.

#82

I would be surprised if there is reliable 30 point climber all season long that is not at least a regional semifinalist. At most regionals such a robot is probably at least a finalist. Sames goes for a reliable 30 second climb with a frisbee dump, except you shift it up to regional finalist and winner. In my opinion that puts them far above “okay-ish” and “acceptable”.

Consider how big of a swing a minibot was in 2011, and then realize that it takes 2 teleop scores in 2013 to equal 1 in 2011. (I realize shooting discs & placing tubes are not equally as hard, but the average alliance shot 2 balls in the middle goal in 2012…)](http://twentyfour.ewcp.org/post/39402342932/rebound-fumble-aim-low)

As always, I would love to be wrong. :o

#83

You may be right. We climbed with no issues (beyond a slipping set screw, from which we’ve learned our lesson) in 2010–indeed our 2013 lift isn’t a whole lot different than our 2010 lifter… So in that sense I look at it and say, “gee, that’s hard, but not so hard–and once you’ve got it, you’re nails.”

Part of me thinks that every regional will have a dozen or more robots that 30+20 climb, and part of me feels that one or two robots at most will do so, and despite our confidence we’re not going to be one of them…

I’m having a hard time picking apart this game. I know how it should be played, but how it will be played still eludes me.

#84

Woah, hold on there! How do you climb without any moving parts? Lifting yourself off the ground requires doing work, which necessitates moving parts… (unless you use straight kinetic energy, but then you have to stay above the ground for 5 seconds before it is scored)

EDIT: I stand corrected: http://youtu.be/MFRCiEeyjDU