Welcome to team 99999v’s Fall Tipping Point robot reveal!
Robot Details
This robot was designed in CAD through an extensive iterative process, starting at the game reveal all through the summer. This year’s game is much more complicated than Change Up was, and we wanted to put in a lot more thought into our robot since there was no telling what a good robot might look like immediately after the unveil.
We settled on this design as something we could rely on working, a simple but effective early season robot. Initially we’d wanted to score on the tall goal, but we decided that was going to be a mid to late season endeavor.
The robot used to have a differential mechanism in order to share 6 motors between the drive and the lift, but the friction from the gears made it better to just go with 4m drive and 2m lift.
The current power distribution is:
4m drive, 200 rpm on 3.25" wheels
2m lift, 100 rpm 1:5
1m intake/conveyor, 600 rpm
1m wrist, 100 rpm 1:5
Pneumatic goal clamp
Pneumatic rear goal hook (not shown in reveal, it was added later)
What I've Learned
We have already competed with this robot, winning tc at clash in the canyon with 1437z (which was an incredible event).
I learned a lot from that event about this game.
First off, goals are not as important as they’ve initially appeared. You can win a match quite easily without any neutral goals, as long as your opponent does not put many goals on their platform.
Rings on alliance goals are going to be a central part of this game. They’re easy, safe points, and even though one ring isn’t worth a lot, they do add up. 8 rings can reliably be put on each alliance goal, that’s a total of 48 points, more than a goal on a platform.
I also think parking is overrated, it wastes time you could be spending putting more goals on the platform or other things. It should only be used as a last resort if you need more points, unless you have a robot which has been built around parking with goals as a main strategy point.
Another thing, the autonomous win point is huge. At clash in the canyon, we were able to secure the autonomous win point in 10 out of our 12 qualification matches. This allowed us to rank as if we had won an additional 5 matches. This was huge in securing the first seed, far more important than winning the 6 point auton bonus or even the goal rush.
And I also think the goal rush is overrated. Scoring rings on an alliance goal, it’s possible to get 24 points pretty easily (3 preloads + 5 fielded rings in a row), which not only is worth more points than a neutral goal in your zone, but is a huge head start in the match. You have an entire alliance goal pretty much full of rings, and driver hasn’t even started yet. This gives you ample time to fill the other alliance goals, and then start putting goals on your platform and stealing neutral goals.
I also thing robot synergy is very important this year. As a ring focused robot, we selected to pick 1437z, the best goal lifting robot, at clash in the canyon, instead of another ring focused robot like 62a or 1469a. The reasoning was because we could easily fill both alliance goals with rings by ourselves, so having a second robot doing rings would be a waste, and would be potentially dangerous because if both robots go for rings, the neutral goals would get neglected.
I think an alliance of complimentary strategies is far more effective than 2 of the same robots.
I also learned that a differential probably isn’t the way to go for power sharing this year. But I do think that pneumatic based motor sharing has a lot of potential, and I’ll likely be investigating into it later.
This has been an amazing season so far, huge thanks to SCA for being such a great place to share ideas, and I wish you all a fantastic season!
Please feel free to ask any questions!
