that’s probably true but i’m sure some team would get to the point of Descoring and the game would heat up. plus the bonus came from having the top object in the goal so it would be a constant battle for the top of the goal instead of the initial battle that lasts 30 seconds (or less)
That’s not true. There were discussions about what the brace on the side should be or whether it should be the full side or whether it should be totally open. At no point was it removed because it looked “nicer.”
shrug
-John
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IMHO the ladder would have been more fun if it had vertical sides. The combination of height and sloping away from the robot made it too challenging for many teams (including my teams). If that thing had vertical sides like the 2010 FRC game, I think we would have had a lot more exciting ladder climbing finishes.
It easy to say the ladder should/could have been different but it’s past history and really does not matter, hindsight is 20/20. Our teams did not even try and create a design that could hang, it was out first full season and was considered too ambitious. However, I remember seeing one of the first teams to accomplish it locally (1138) and it was a huge thrill for the entire audience watching. The very fact that so few teams could achieve it and even then often chose not to do so made it special.
I dont agree, i think that the ladder was a great challenge for experienced teams, had the ladder been easier to climb - everyone would have done it, and it would have turned out like the 30" goals this year, the ladder and goal lifting separated the good teams from the rest (especially if you could do both)
now that i think back, was there a team that did both? (do both “well” enough)
Both Free Range Robotics robots could do it well, we could do them both as well but not as well as them (our goal lifting wasnt quite perfected) - another thing which got us through to division finals was descoring goals under the ladder
Free range video (NZ Nationals, we didnt have goal lifting there 
)-
Unfortunately strategy knocked us out at worlds division finals
WTH
that was one of the most amazing matches i saw!
cant believe i didnt watch that till now!
bit late, but tip:
if ur out of tubes, put empty bases in the ladder anyways
you dont need to hang that early (8sec hang)
just keep descoring/keep the game going until last 15secs
so how on EARTH did that alliance loose?
dual HighHang AND base in the ladder…
It looked like Free Range was having some trouble lifting goals once they got in the Finals at the World Championship. They also had some trouble hanging, as I never saw them successfully hang in the Finals, from what I remember. (I’m only talking about matches that I saw.) Their robot was still the most impressive one I saw for Round Up. Josh’s robot was very clean and all, and Green Egg had an awesome drive and picked up goals very reliably, but personally I absolutely loved Free Range’s robot, which could do it all, and do it well.
~Jordan
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From what I know (It wasn’t my robot, mine was B back then) at worlds the drive train overheated alot and was causing loads of problems. High hanging didnt turn out too well either, the latches we had started to bend I think.
However, I might be wrong as it wasnt my robot. On the whole, our 2 robots were very consistent (thanks to the friendly matches with aMESS which raised our standard) up until worlds. If I find a nice vid of our robots working well I’ll post a link.
Wow, that was a truely incredible match! Amazing robots.
Had Elevation progressed further, it may have reached de-scoring but I suspect more teams would have just taken all the opponent’s objects and dumped them outside the field because that wasn’t illegal then.
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Our 4-bar paralellogram bot could high hang and score last year, but it took too long to line up, especially with several other robots jostling you.
yeah that’s pretty true plus with the parts we have now it would be crazy
some teams did do that (throwing out), although to a certain extent
Right. I mean if Elevation were played now it would be a race to throw all the cubes out of the field or to gather them before your opponent could do so.
Yes, possibly. Though de-scoring proved to be very difficult with how small the gaps were between the goals and the cubes from our prototyping for a method to de-score, so we ended up scrapping it.
As for throwing out cubes, we had that happen against us by Trinity Robotics in our first match at the World Championship. It proved as a challenge for our team, and we almost lost because of it. We hadn’t ever seen this strategy used that effectively before that. Trinity Robotics had a very innovative robot, in my opinion. Here’s a video Cody Smith uploaded to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGQDfOErVTc
~Jordan
I watched the video and I was wondering how do they hold ten cubes? I see their intake in the front and it looks like it can only hold 3 maybe 4. Do the cubes spiral around the inside of the track which allows it to raise and lower? How does that work is it spring loaded? I’m trying to figure out how they get the cubes out once the got them in.
Yes, the cubes travel around the circular part behind the intake. It has a wheel with zip-ties on it to intake/outtake the cubes in it from/to the tread intake in the front.
~Jordan
Yeah I remember that robot. When I saw it at worlds I was amazed. It was a very innovative way to go about picking up and depositing cubes; however, it probably wasn’t the most efficient. Still really cool though.