Guys, so you think you can drive? Check out this amazing run in the heat of competition by Team 394’s 8th grade driver, pretty much maxing out ever goal! She will be a force to be reckoned with at the Worlds! AFAIK this may be a record high.
thats a pretty good robot for that mechanism type too
if they could, there was probably enough time for a hang 
are there any vids with it in an actual match?
An amazing run, though not a world record (we have video of a max-without-hanging-or-preloads 117 achieved in late October in practice which our coach has asked us not to post). That bot is really fast for its size–do I detect pseudo-holo and high-strength motors?
The driver is frighteningly good. I shudder to think what’ll happen when she has four more years of experience. Congrats to Highlands on a cool bot and a terrific driver.
With that being done by a middle schooler, I have nothing to say to that. Truly amazing.
(Lol I laugh there will be a mini-battle for Robot Skills Champion between Highlands and Iolani at Pan Pacific :p)
I see that was from the Central VEX tournament at Millilani. Sorry if this is derailing a bit, but what were the results? (Champions, excellence award, etc.)
if we have this now, i wonder how hard it would be to max out at worlds (all tubes, all goals, high hang)
and how will the winner be selected when more than one team maxes out?
(by how much time is left? ;))
A few things about this run:
- It was not the maximum score; a tube fell off a goal.
- A single driver was operated the drive base and the arm. That makes this all the more ridiculous.
- This brings up a bit of a question I’ve had on my mind for awhile. This robot is GREAT at the Skills Challenge but it could be beaten in normal play by specific other robot types if all of the stacks are knocked over. What if a different robot design wins more at the actual challenge than the Skills Challenge? Will teams enter different robots into each? Which challenge should a team design for?
I think this robot can easily be defeated. It’s quick, but if you have two other quick stacker bots, then one can go around knocking over towers while the other proceeds to score.
It’s not guaranteed, but that immediately eliminates the primary advantage that claw bots seem to hold.
- Sunny
after my team and i saw that somebody suggested that we should work from now, until worlds to perfect a similar robot that can do ALL tubes and HIGH HANG
we knew we would be toast in REAL matches, but we would still be first in the world for skills 
Personally, I think it’s a good idea to try to go with one driver for the whole robot rather than two. It cuts down on wasted time for communications, and a savvy programmer with a fairly simple bot can fit all of the controls onto one controller.
Nay, the primary advantage that clawbots hold so far is being the most efficient “descorers” both off of high goals and off of low goals. Which is huge. Stacks are nice in driver skills, but actually scoring a full stack of four in the game is silly. At our last competition we occasionally deliberately knocked over our own stacks to make it harder for opposing robots to get to them and throw them under the ladder.
Please define “stacker bots” or provide an example; either there haven’t been any here or I just don’t quite get the terminology. I would think you don’t mean the center needle design.
Also, your scenario for defeating this robot seems to require a two-on-one situation. Don’t forget that they’ll have an alliance partner, who will likely be scoring too. On top of that, knocking over stacks may drop this robot’s efficiency, but it doesn’t drop it to 0. Your one robot would have to outscore both of the opposing alliance’s robots–a tall order. Let’s wait until we see this in competition to try and figure out how to beat it. I bet it’s harder than some people here seem to think.
What an awesome driver, that was very impressive! Thanks for sharing it.
Like the song too! Beatles are great.
I haven’t seen very many claws, but I would say that having tubes in stacks is one of the primary advantages. De-scoring is big as well, but both advantages are pretty major.
My definition of stacker bots is pretty much the robots with the center needle design.
Of course that one suggestion is a small part of an entire sea of decisions that we call a match, and even with the stacks gone, I never implied that the robot would completely keel over and stop running. But, I believe it’s a way to significantly down one of those types of robots.
I’m not saying that the needler/stacker bots are better than the claws or vice versa, but I am saying that if those rings weren’t in stacks, claws would have a harder time compared to the need/stacker bots.
- Sunny
Wow, that was amazing. But I agree, if a robot were to tip the stacks over, a clawbot would have a very hard time. Yet, with it’s advantage of descoring, it will be a very hard robot to conquer in a match.
agree with sunny about the efficiency once the tubes are scattered about
that was why we went with the needle design rather than a claw such as this
After reading over these comments, it seems to me that the best all around robot for the match and the skills challenges would have to combine the quick stack capabilities of a claw with the scattered tubes capabilities of a stacker. That way at the beginning of the match (or in the skills challenges) it could quickly pick up stacks and towards the end of the match it would be able to gather lose rings and score them individually.
The real question is How
just pick an alliance partner with the opposite mechanism 
or be the “unique” design and have everybody fight over you
I too agree that there is an efficiency tradeoff. Claws are considerably more efficient in the autonomous period and in the early stages of the match, while the needle is more efficient late in the match. We went for a claw because of:
- The ten-point autonomous bonus, which clawbots are more likely to win due to their speed with stacks.
- The fact that any hanging would be done during a needlebot’s peak efficiency, cutting down on your best time.
- Descoring. Simply put, we don’t believe that a bot which cannot remove scored opponent tubes can beat one that can.
- Skills Challenges. These are a great way to qualify for Worlds early and are a significant factor in Excellence Awards.
- Weight. A claw is generally lighter than a needle, making the bot faster.
- Driver precision. Less is required with the claw than with the needle.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t even better designs out there. Somehow, I don’t think that either of these two designs will be the ones that draw oohs and aahs in Florida–they’ll be the bread and butter, so to speak, but not the centerpiece.
Sorry for hijacking the thread. I did find out tonight, though, that 394 won both skills challenges and the elimination rounds at the tournament in the video. Again, great job guys.
Hehehehe.
Rick TYler will have some footage up soon after JumpStart, I’m sure, but of course you’ll see it in person.
I’ll try to post a video of our tests with it once we finish it this 4-day weekend.
I’ve said for a long time that the great robots are a combination of design (build and programming), driver practice and game day/match strategy. Year after year I’ve seen “the average claw bot” have the wheels driven off of it by a well practiced drive team and win. But the people on the podium at the end of the day have planned and executed match strategies.
I’m not a believer in the single driver robot. I like that the base driver gets to the location in the most efficient manner possible. The operator gets the scoring mechanism in place on the way over, makes the move on arrival and it’s off to the next location. Two heads, provided they are communicating more than “there, no, there, hey there” are better than one. A coach that is watching the match from a global perspective that can give direction is priceless. Tunnel vision by the operator and driver is deadly.
For you math fans (and note the places that a zero or negative number makes a difference:
WIN = ((design + programming) * driver-skills * strategy) ^ communicationTeams 2438 and 394 Drivers Skills scores of 109 and 107, respectively, in the last two tournaments demonstrates that the single driver mode will be tough to beat. The 109 score represents 4 tubes on every goal except for 2 with 2 each. Granted hanging is possible but the 60 sec constraint will make it difficult. I’ve yet to see any anyone hang in under 10 secs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_JSheLcI4 at ~8:15, they took a while to get into place in that match, but hung in <5 seconds, and that was with “bouncing” up and down a little. The actual lift took <2 seconds, and although it was only a low hang, a little work could make it a high-hanging robot.
~Jordan