I think I have a solution. It’s very unlikely that it would work, but it just might. Tell me when I can post.
My bad, forgot about 9v battery. Let say there is one as well as VEXNet keys. Since it is state championship they don’t require flag holder.
We will significantly elevate the drama. The traffic situation is catastrophic. Head Ref just got in the building 30 seconds ago. There are no other teams, no other refs and a gymnasium full of spectators. School officials say they want everyone out in 15 minutes.
Spectators are furious - they want to see the action. Head Ref decides to run this one match and will declare championship winners based on the results. He is inspecting other robots now. Yours is due for inspection in 8 minutes.
When you look at the Ref you realize that dubious trick of placing your robot on the top side of the field perimeter will not pass. You need something less controversial, something that complies with the rules 100%.
You turn to your partners once again. Not only their toolbox’s content is strange, they have no other spare parts at all. Their design and build practices are weird - they had secured all their connections with Loctite or something even worse. No wonder they fried all their electronics just before the match.
You look at the opposing teams. They are from the rival HS across the town. They didn’t like you before, but now all they want is to take you down. The only hope is that their robots were not designed to elevate and are as fast as sleepy turtles.
The time is running out. What do you do?
You vaguely remember from your TRIZ class that you have to find a “language trap” in your reasoning and escape it.
The time is running out fast. So what do you do, cody? You have only 7 minutes left.
Maybe were thinking too complex. We don’t have to use all of our parts. I think were missing something very important about our alliance. Even though our alliance is completely useless and will not move, can we assume it still 18 inches tall? We only have to be above the field parameter to be high lifted and if our alliance is 18 inches they would be above that. Sorry if I’m getting ahead of the activity. I’m afraid can’t figure out an exact answer for the “language barrier” question. The only thing I can see is that When I read the high lifting rules it reads sort of like your team’s robot is doing the lifting when actually either robot can be the lifter.
Thanks,
Kelton
(I think) The language trap is that it does not say that we cannot start on the other robot.
We put a cortex on the other robot, motor connected to a c-channel touching our square. When auton starts, we lift the c-channel.
Edit: Never Mind, <SG1>
Wait. Let’s try this: We build the c-chan frame and mount securely-ish, build one stage scissor, load up one stage scissor with rubber bands, and use motor as release pin. Suddenly we have a leaping robot. Mount the weight towards the front, and we should fall on our alliance partner. High elevation+auton= WIN
Edit: SG1 shoots down the idea above this post, sadly. It was cleaner than mine, too.
SG1 does not allow that.
We could balance the cortex on top of a c-channel, and very close to and above
the other robot, then turn the c-channel.
That is, motor screwed into the cortex, balanced on the c-channel.
Yes. The strongest part of the alliance is you. Not only you know everything about VEX parts and the robot design but, also, you studied Nothing-But-Net-Game-Manual very well. You understand all Game Definitions and know some of the important rules (<SG1>, <SG2>, and <SG10>) literally by heart. Out of curiosity you notice a couple of holes in their logic. Little did you know that it could help you win state championship and advance to worlds one day.
The field perimeter is approximately 11" high. Your alliance partner’s robot looks like a Death Star if it was made in a shape of cube with a 10" side.
The “language trap” refers to people assuming they have to do something, because of the way everybody describes the problem. But if you actually read specifications or try to understand the problem you will be surprised to learn that you could do something else.
I cannot come up with quick example now because it needs context. Believe me, once we figure out what the first trap in this exercise (one we are trying to resolve now) is - it will be obvious to everyone in a hindsight.
You are so close now! And it highlights the strength of TRIZ method - do not be afraid of contradictions or conflicts - spell them out and see if they could be resolved or pushed somewhere else.
I actually have never seen this rule enforced, probably about half of the robots in my region don’t use backup batteries so I think it would be possible to pass inspection
This is an interesting idea, but is it reliable?
We are looking for something very simple, that just happens to be very reliable. We are very close.
Wait. Who said we couldn’t balance on our preloads? No one: we just assumed it.
SG1 again.
No one. Everything that is not specifically prohibited by the rules is legal unless Karthik interprets it otherwise.
Another important principle, not specific to TRIZ, but universal for any engineering is that you want to minimize your action and resources.
Every time you need to satisfy a rule or a constraint you need to ask yourself: what is the absolute minimum I have to do for that?
If you keep doing it for every rule individually, you may not find a solution, but you will gain some great insights into your system.
So, who wants to give a summary of progress so far.
What are the words whose “traps” you have escaped? What did you gain by that?
Are there any unresolved conflicts remaining? What are they? Hint:
But what specifically is still unresolved?
Jason32A’s conflict is that the robot must be touching the square. This could be resolved by having a bit of pocket fluff wrapped around whatever the motor is turning, letting it touch the tile, and pulling it up in auton. This is low lift+auton bonus = 35 points > 30 points. Win. But that assumes you have pocket fluff, and it is a non-functional decoration, and that you can balance a cortex on the balls.
The conflict on my first solution is that our robot cannot touch the other robot. We could remedy this by starting very close to their robot, and falling onto it, but I’m not sure how this could be done.
You nailed description of the conflicts!
I would say we are 95% there.
But we need to aim higher.
Also, I don’t want to be too pedantic, but since we kind of learning the TRIZ… puzzler7, please, tell us about which words no longer “trap” you. I think there is at least one you can name that everybody wants to know.
Also, since we are getting very close to the end, I would like to say that the final conflict that we will resolve is based on a rather free interpretation of <SG1>, <SG2>, and a couple of the Game Definitions.
Many people will say: you cannot do that! It is against the common sense!
To which I would say that I agree and this will be one of the first things that Karthik will shut down in the revised rules. But I still stand by my interpretation of the current rules and thanks to that loophole we could have this fun and hopefully educational thread.
Also, some one or some thing has pumped all the air out of the room and a miniature volcano has erupted through the floor. Nearby asbestos suits are gleaming in the corridor but they’ve been glued to a STEM poster with the contents of a Pop Tart and you know you are helpless without them. A gravitational bichon frise has galloped onto the scene sporting a voluptuous black hole in its forehead where its third eye used to be. Yet few people have taken notice of the bear trap of words you have clenched around your neck. The antidote to the TRIZ somebody slipped into your kool-aide is pouring forth from the malfunctioning sprinkler system but the tiny microfluidic valve with which the nurse at the mental hospital replaced your mouth has inexplicably rusted shut again. A sallow lump of self-aware lichen is screaming behind you: *Why the heck does our autonomous always just sit there? *
Diameter of the ball is 4 inches +0, -0.13. Weight of the robot will compress the ball slightly, ball will also compress field tile slightly, therefore the robot balanced on top of balls will not be 4 inches above the tiles and will not be considered low elevated.
I’d agree, just because the balls are 4 +/-1/8, they are foam and will compress enough even with a small load on them. By balancing on top and retracting the C-channel that you set up touching the ground using the rubber bands and the one functional 3sec motor, would not get you 4 inches up.
Personally I’d much rather build a catapult using the C-channel hinged with zip ties, powered by rubber bands and released by the motor (and a zip tie chain to limit the catapult arm forward swing for the correct launch angle). One hit wonder and given my uncanny ability to aim and calculate launch velocities, scores four balls in the high goal in one shot. 20points + 10 auton win! 30 points FTW, hopefully… Because all of this hinges on your opposition being just as useless as your alliance in its current state.
<SG1> and <SG2> no longer trap us. To satisfy these rules, we only need to touch our square, touch our preloads, not touch the other robot, and be under 18 in.
There’s another conflict here. To low elevate, we need to also touch the other robot. This gets close to the complicated and unreliable side, but we could angle the other robot towards us using the preloads, tie the other end of the pocket fluff (I guess we could use rubber bands, to stay within our parts constraint) to a ziptie, and as we pull up the rubber bands, the ziptie touches the other robot.