Yes, but I would consider that a riskier strategy, since your opponents could counter that strategy by getting to and grabbing those goals before you do, as well as being able to steal those goals from you during the match. Rings on auton goals, while they may score less, are a much safer bet because there really isn’t a way to stop you from grabbing rings, as well as alliance rings being protected.
That’s where a strategy of simultaneously scoring rings and lifting goals also works really well. You can immediately take one of your own alliance mogos and score rings as you go around and regain possession of the neutral mogos. Plus, rushing the goals in auton doesn’t mean that you give up the safer route of getting rings. I’m just thinking that mogo possession and lifting has a much higher point ceiling and if you can do both at the same time, it will have the best chance of winning if you do lose the goal rush.
to some extent, but if your partner is smart, they’re going to try and steal at least one of your alliance goals to deny you points. This was the most effective strategy our opponents used against us in both finals matches at clash, and we were only just barely able to outscore with only one alliance goal. Alliance goals are a given to have, only if you grab them during auton when your opponent can’t. Otherwise you might risk losing one of them to a very strategic opponent.
of course, as robots get better it might be very realistic for a robot to grab a neutral goal, and grab an alliance goal, and put 8 or more rings on it, all in auton, effectively doing both the goal rush and getting that safe head start in rings.
I think just grabbing an alliance mogo during auton is even enough if you win goal rush. The main concern is that the opposing alliance steals your mogo but you already possess one to score on anyway. If I was on the opposing alliance who just lost goal rush, I would try and take a goal from the opposing alliance’s platform and transfer it to the alliance platform while scoring alliance rings on my own alliance mogo while driving between platforms. This seems like a better strategy to me since I can descore 40 points from the other alliance, gain 40 points for a mogo on the platform, and score rings while doing that.
are you guys considering scoring the tall branch on the neutral mogo? and is it even worth it?
My team has considered a robot with this capability and we thought it wasn’t worth it for us to try to get. To get up there you would likely use a DR4B which would need at least two motors to lift that high. Then you would want to be able to pick up and hold at least 3-5 rings (although 6-8 would be better) at the end of the DR4B. Whatever intake/outtake/scoring mechanism would likely need another motor. Our team isn’t going to be able to get pneumatics for a long time if at all, so we are limited to only motors. Assuming you are using 4 motor drive, that only leaves 1 motor for any mobile goal functions. For these reasons, my team decided against this kind of design. Of course, it could certainly work and be effective but we thought we could do better with a different design.
If you’re planning a design with a lift like this, make sure to check our NorCal’s robot videos. They have very interesting designs for a lift like this.
I disagree. With the branch only being able to hold 5 rings at most, especially with the updates to the scoring rules, holding more than 5 is not necessary for scoring on neutral goals.
You would likely be using the same ring mechanism for scoring alliance goals if you can score on the neutral goals, otherwise that could be a waste of power, so would want to hold more for the alliance goals.
Oh this was my mistake. I guessed how many rings each top branch could hold.
Yes but this also raises the question of what to do with the neutral mobile goal once the rings are scored if it’s before the last 30 seconds. After that, you could put it on the platform to prevent your opponent from descoring from it but before that it’s fair game.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the alliance mobile goals can hold around 10 rings, so since you’ll probably need to make 2 trips anyways, it might be worth it to split the load in half in order to try and stay a bit lighter than you would otherwise.
they can, but I found 8 rings to be the most the goals could reliably hold. Depending on how the rings nest, it can theoretically go up to 12, but that’s not likely to ever happen in a match.
I did some testing and it looks like the rings nest a lot better with the alliance goal straight up and down. When its at an angle they don’t really nest as much. So like the amogo bot usually has them nest where as ones that tilt do not.
I found that setting the goal down, and then wiggling the lift a bit can make the rings settle in a more compact way, allowing the scoring of an additional few rings. With this technique I can get up to 9-10 rings, but it takes longer.
This is a wonderful robot! Good job. 
Here’s a video of the rear goal hook in action if anyone is interested:
The hook is powered by a single cylinder, and just drags a goal behind the bot.
It’s not super important, but it could be mildly useful in specific circumstances, and it has no downsides.
This is an awesome robot that your team has made, its really inspiring!
Can you describe the 4 bar lift more? I’m slightly confused about how it works.
Thanks a lot!
it’s essentially just a parallelogram. That I power, shifting the angles in order to get that upwards motion while keeping the end parallel. see this article for more details:
If you’re wondering how 4 bar lifts work in general, this is another excellent recourse:
Kepler Electronics The Ultimate Guide to Bar Lifts
Hey! I’m a high school student and would love to build your design for our next competition. Would you mind sending a layout or design for your build? And if there’s any special parts, where you bought them? I’ve looked for the pneumatic clamp on the vex site but can’t find it.