Since we did not have the time to put together our full feature reveal for this year, I present the next best thing: single take practice footage. There’s something oddly satisfying about that floor pick up.
Definitely impressive, I’m sure you will be a force to reckon with at your events. Our bot did 9 gears and a climb in less than 135 sec during an at-home practice run, and our max during a regular match at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional was about 5 gears (we ended up scoring 2nd most gears of any team). The added obstacle of a second airship and 5 other robots tends to throw a kink in things, although I’m sure you’re floor pickup will be a big advantage.
We do predict a possibility of a likelihood of 5-7 gears per match when factoring in obstacles such as other robots and the airship. On the other hand, consider the BIGGEST advantage of a floor pick up: certain matches may allow us to score more than 8 on our own if we add in the possibility of snagging fallen gears from the opposing alliance chute, which happens to be just a few feet from our own alliance lifts. Grabbing fallen gears from other bots in the middle of the field can be another way to speed up cycles as well.
That doesn’t quite look like a full-field run for the gear… what’s that total distance you’re driving?
Not to discredit your awesome robot, but I would second that. Also, even if the loading stations are close to where they should be distance-wise, on the field they are oriented at an angle towards the opposing airship, so forcefully pushing the gears out of the loading station would not work as well as it does in the video.
Yes unfortunately the space we share for practice is not as big as a full field so it is a number feet shy of full sized. I’ll need to ask for an actual measurement. Considering that we plan to have our human players push the gears out of the chute as far as they can without hitting the airship, this shorter field may not be as huge a factor in our cycling as it may seem, compared to a team that must be right against the chute to get a gear. These chutes were also moved even further from their original position because we were having a media/sponsor day and another team was using the space where the chutes originally were, so this field looks even smaller than what we usually practice, but I assure you that our cycle times are still very similar when they are pushed back to where they usually are.
I only say this because the landing points for gears can differ by up to 3 feet or more. We’ll only have conclusive evidence of this cycling rate once we get on a full field. Our first competition is week 4 so we haven’t yet had the privilege to try the whole distance with the chute angle.
I think with maximizing the human player gear deployment distance and finding the right angle of deployment onto the field and the possibility of picking up fallen gears mid-field or at the opposing chute, I still see our gear cycle rate to be around 5-7 gears with a full field and obastacles as a realistic projection. The gears are being forced out the chutes by the human players, so we can still have some play with the angle at which the gears come out of the chute. With the right technique, the gear doesn’t have to come out with a path perpendicular to the wall.
If we say that it takes only 3 more seconds to make up for the distance, which yields a 13 second cycle if done without any errors (10 seconds is about the time for a perfect cycle in this video by driving from the airship, to picking up, to driving back, to ejection), that’s still a practice teleop run of 8 gears in 1:44 giving plenty of time for a climb (assuming perfect conditions of a full field with the same lack of obstacles shown in the video).
But of course, everything I am saying means nothing until we get into a practice match! 
Your robot looks great again this year. My advice (worth the paper it’s printed on) is to not be too optimistic about how many gears you can get on your own in real competition. If you aim for, say, 3-4 per match, with 100% climb, you will feel great when you get five, instead of being disappointed that you didn’t get 8. It’s always harder on the real field.
Just remember - the biggest impediments to doing so many gears in a single match are your partners. If you want some real practice, put some 2’ high boxes up and then tell your drivers to “see” through them to get gears. Everyone means well, even as they get in your way. :rolleyes:
I have never seen a gear go that far on a regulation field before and if it did it would be at the airship.
Love your gear pickup. #gearpickupclub!
Additional questions: what is your geartrain free speed and robot weight?
FWIW our ‘perfect’ cycle takes about 12s on a full field as measured from match footage, putting our total gear count + climb in a perfect match at 11. We’ve never scored more than 7 that I know of. You may wish to consider a larger de-rating factor!
I don’t think that I implied that I expect 8 in an actual match. I mentioned a minimum expectation of 5 gears in a match ideally. 3-4 is a reasonable expectation with harder opponents. 8 was just in the case of practice and used for the sake of hypothetical argument, since it is the only thing we can draw on at the moment.
Obstacles are another thing that I had mentioned in my previous response to this thread, and their impedement on cycle time was noted in the lower estimation of successful gears scored in a match as opposed to the 8 in practice. I will take your advice about putting boxes on the field for future practice sessions. Thank you! One project I want for the students is to get our 2016 robot up and running as a functioning defense bot to practice against, especially since it’s got 6 pneumatic tires.
I do expect a good chance of hitting the opponent airship with our current technique. Our human players do not deploy gears from the chute from the gear hole. Instead they use the top opening for the balls (without breaking the planes of the opening) and bounce the gear off the bottom surface like a rock skipping on water. In future practice sessions, I would like them to try bouncing the gear off the side wall as well in order to deflect the gear away from the airship as it lands on the field. I hope that would be a possible solution.
You’re probably right. Like I mentioned, 5-7 seems like a good chance of achieving consistently, 3-4 is probably our best shot, and 8+ is an ideal goal that we want to work towards. I don’t have high expectations, especially with my own experience in FRC, but it’s also not the best thing to sell yourself short and convince yourself you can’t do something as soon as you walk into competition. I’ll let the arena performance break my spirits haha.
But I have a question for you now: do you think that the possibility of dropped gears in the opposing chute gives enough advantage for a floor pick up bot to increase their cycle rate?
The robot weights about 135 with battery and bumpers. The free speed of low gear was calculated at 7 fps and the high gear was calculated at about 17 fps.
We found it is much easier to get a good bounce on the team version of the field than the actual field. It is still very possible to get gears at least midway down the field though. (Just make sure your human player is prepared to answer questions regarding the legality of it!)
We’ll make sure he knows his rules. What reason do you think there is for the differnce in bounce?
My bad. I didn’t read carefully enough. You guys have enough high level experience that I shouldn’t have assumed you would succumb to optimism prior to playing.
I do expect a good chance of hitting the opponent airship with our current technique. Our human players do not deploy gears from the chute from the gear hole. Instead they use the top opening for the balls (without breaking the planes of the opening) and bounce the gear off the bottom surface like a rock skipping on water. In future practice sessions, I would like them to try bouncing the gear off the side wall as well in order to deflect the gear away from the airship as it lands on the field. I hope that would be a possible solution.
Man, that is creative, I love it. We have a floor pickup as well; I will talk to the human players and see what can/should be done to reduce cycle times the way you have demonstrated.
You might have enough speed to get to a large number of gear cycles then.
The technique being described to launch gears out of the player station is certainly interesting, if vulnerable to another robot with ground loading. If indeed you can get gears a significant distance down the field you have a good chance of scoring a lot of gears.
Edit: noting where most teams play defense, robots will likely be able to stop the gears being pushed out, and run effective defense against your pickup since you’ll be lacking protection from the loading zone. Something to consider for your strategy discussions!
Bouncing a gear down the field may be tricky to do in elims, where a team may stick their defending robot on the white line. Good pre-match discussions about match flow help with a lot of questions about elims defense in this game, so maybe there’s a way to get the gear around the defender.
And then say “Oh snap! You just got juked by an inanimate object!”
We can still just do a gentle drop into the retrieval zone while inside it and get the protection and still pick up from the floor. It might add time to cycles, but it keeps away the defenders. A longer cycle is better than no cycle. One possibility is to have a tag team thing going on where there is always someone at the retrieval zone to take advantage of the protected area and keep opponents away from a stockpile of gears dropped on the floor, and then the robots can switch places as they get to and from the chute so there is someone there at least most of the match.
I think just the difference between wood and plastic. Also, the human player can break the plane momentarily to load gears.
I thought that would be the difference. We’re loading gears from the top of the chute, not the small slot for the gear. The gear is being tossed from outside the planes of the chute to minimze any violations.