Hey everyone, it’s Nolan from 1970K.
This is our official reveal for our 2nd completed robot of the season, Ahm. 8675A, who is currently 4th in the world in skills, also joined us this time around for the reveal. We have won 2 tournaments together so far this season, scoring 145 in a match (tied for highest in the world). Let me know if you guys have any questions and I will do my best to answer them!
Thanks,
Nolan
Wow both of those are really good.
Astonishing reveal, absolutely amazing job! It’s amazing to see the insane difference from your previous reveal, it truly has taken steps forward!
Very well built robots, props to both teams. I would like to ask you what you think about the intakes of both your 1970K robot and 8675A’s compared to 6007X’s and 7700R’s more passive intakes. Do you think that with the mostly passive intake design it would make your robots better, or not?
@ABlindSquirrel I’d like to respond from the opposite perspective: Active and passive both have their advantages in my opinion. Active is far better for the stationary goal and the loader cones. However, passive is unparalleled for the on field cones on mobile goals. Neither aspect can be ignored so I think that active - passive alliances will be the best as the season goes on.
@ABlindSquirrel I would have to agree with @Aeden_6007. Another advantage of passive is you can use that motor for another mechanism. We are currently prototyping passive intakes. I would like to find a mechanism that is as good as a claw/roller for loads, and as good as a passive intake for fielding.
@Aeden_6007 @Avery Hoffmann I completely agree that both types have their advantages and disadvantages. While my team has yet to experiment with a passive intake (Will be soon however), I’d imagine that it can do decently well with the preloads and stationary goal, even though active intakes will one up them. When it comes down to it I’d say it relies on the driver’s skill. Thanks for both your opinions.
@ABlindSquirrel You physically cannot do stationary goal with either my or 7700R’s robot. As for preloads, it is somewhat difficult under any circumstance and impossible for cones 1-4 or 5 without an absurd amount of driving back and forth.
@Aeden_6007 Really? Of course I have not tested it myself yet but it would seem you could just lift your DR4B after detaching from the cone, unless the robot is too close. Yeah I do see how the preloads wouldn’t be the best option during a match.
@ABlindSquirrel How exactly would you detach from the cone? Our intakes can only be pulled off the stack forwards, and pulling off the stationary goal would require pulling backwards off the stack. If you could accomplish bi-directional release with a passive intake, well, that’s another story, but with out current designs, it is not at all possible.
EDIT: Just reread your post; I may have misunderstood. If this means anything to you, our robots are indeed too close.
@Aeden_6007 I’m using this video of 7700R as a reference since someones video (that’s you) is blurred on purpose 
At first I thought that you could just normally stack on the stationary like you would a mobile goal and pulling forwards off of it and lifting, then driving backwards. After watching more closely I see now how the robot can’t do that due to the base.
While I do think that an active-passive alliance will definitely be the best option by the end of the season, I think more teams will go with an active claw specifically because it’s more well-rounded. It lets you do all possible types of loads and scoring (while some less efficiently than others), which makes robots less dependent on finding a good alliance.
I think that for most teams, the active claw and a 6-motor drive will be much more important than an 8-motor drive and a passive claw, but the two working together would be really nice.
@Mystellianne Having an active-passive intake alliance would definitely dominate due to the advantages taking care of the others disadvantages. Time will tell though.
Agreed, although I don’t think we’ll end up seeing them very often because most people will be drawn away from passive intakes due to their dependency on active partners. I’m not saying they couldn’t hold their own, but they’re guaranteed to lose the stationary goal and can’t take full advantage of the driver loads.
True, just gotta wait till a passive intake can somehow do all!
I would disagree with you on both of these points (though I’m pretty biased).
First, I doubt the importance of the stationary goal. It is far slower to stack on than mobile goals (even with the method of transferring cones from mobile goals), and the stationary goal high stack bonus is negligible when compared to the time investment required.
Second, while it is true that the autoloader is far easier with an active intake, it is easy to defend against, and can still be used for higher cones by passive intakes. Further, we are already seeing “cone races” akin to the nothing but net gameplay in which teams focus on the shared (field) balls before focusing on exclusive balls (the driver loads) simply because there is plenty of time at the end to do those once the field is clear. In this case, on field cone speed is paramount, which is where passive intakes excel.
Finally, I doubt that any active intake will be able to make an autonomous that scores as many points as a passive intake is able to (please prove me wrong), and winning autonomous is a 20 point swing, which is ridiculous (think an extra 10 cone stack).
I would argue that the active robot in an active-passive alliance is dependent on the passive intake for its autonomous capabilities and on field superiority, and will become more so as the season processes. However, I’m convinced that some combination of the two designs will be the best design, if it is, in fact, possible, which is why that is what I’m working on now.
I’d love to hear any flaws in my reasoning (I’m sure there are many).
From what we experienced in competing at this years Pan Pacific in an alliance with the Rolling Robots, a combination of both types of robots really maximizes points. And yes, the stationary is very important especially in close matches. We have realized that just having the high stack in the 20, 10, and stationary goals would secure a match. It is important to not think of any of the scoring options as not important, as even the parking bonuses have been enough to swing games.
As far as speed, it will come down to driving skill for those stationaries. The best examples out there are teams 7090 and IFT Robotics. Both teams have been using simple DR4Bs with dual purpose claws and winning A LOT with them. 7090B recently won in Japan and even managed to win what was almost a 1v2 (not insulting the other team) in their final match against their A team and Pearl City who is a VERY strong team. They also currently hold the top skills score in the World and again - with a very simple machine.
You are correct though with most of your post - it will be very hard to be a passive intakes speed in autonomous also considering that you win by an even higher margin by getting high stack (saw your teaser video, extremely impressive autonomous) making it possible to score over 50 points in the first 15 seconds if robots have complimentary autonomous programs.
Just saying, an autonomous that drives all the way to the other side is very easy to code and very effective in blocking.
Another very effective strategy against mostly every robot right now is tipping all the cones. Efficiency drops through the roof for all 4 of these robots once cones are tipped.
This logic does not make sense unless there are literally no cones left on the field. The stationary goal is ALWAYS slower than a mobile goal and even transferring cones from a mobile goal to the stationary goal is time consuming and can only net you 5 points (2.5 cones) maximum. If you just go and stack 3 more cones, you come out ahead. My conclusion that the stationary goal is not worth focusing on is based upon its inefficiency, not on my considering it “unimportant.” I think that a useful comparison is the floor goal in skyrise; it definitely decided some matches, but it was not worth changing your design for because there were always better ways to score.
Now, you are certainly correct that the stationary goal can add a match deciding 5 points to an alliances score, but only if there are no more cones on the field or autoloader.
In my opinion, the real advantage of autoloader stacking is in having an autonomous that is resilient to defense by an opposing team, but I’m still not totally sure about whether it’s worth it because we have been able to make our autonomouses relatively hard to defend (at our last competition we were able to push a defending robot out of the way and score unimpeded).
I’m not saying that the stationary goal is more important than mobile goals, I’m simply saying that teams may be drawn away from a claw that cannot score on all possible areas, which may change the match in the chance they get allied with a mogo bot or a 1v2. Don’t worry, I think passive claws are very good at what they do, and of course an active/passive alliance is probably going to be the best combination, but other teams may see it differently, and that’s why we aren’t seeing them more often.
Also, give me a week on the auton, currently working on one that scores the same as the one you posted with the blurred bot, but I don’t have the robot with me right now as my team is currently switching our drivetrain to be 6 motors.