@Kevin_Leonard posted a new topic, subject "Favorite 2018 Robots". It read: In the same vein as this thread from last year: What was your **Coolest** robot this year? What was your **Most Elegant**? What was your **Most Effective**? And what robot made you say “Man, that's **what we should have built** ”? My personal choices: **Coolest:** **5050** is a team more people should know. Hailing from Michigan, their flip-up single stage elevator was the most effective one I've seen. they also had a pinch mechanism for cubes that was way more effective than it should have been and a scissor-lift climber that climbed almost every match in Carson. They were really awesome and I wish we got to play with them in Carson. **Most Elegant:** **254** 's design was absolutely brilliant this season, and they executed it perfectly. It's not something every team could have executed, but their robot's ability to play every part of the field at the highest level was unparalleled in FRC this season, and their beautiful design was a large factor in that. **Most Effective:** Going into the championship, I felt like most of FRC still didn't know just how good **3357** was. Their ability to pack layer 1 of a scale so tightly is a huge part of why their alliance was able to make Einstein finals, despite not being able to get as many cubes on the scale in autonomous. In addition to their ability to pack layer 1 with 7-8 cubes quickly and consistently, their layer 2 cubes were placed at the point of maximum torque on the scale, and their climb was heckin' consistent. **What we should've built:** I'm pretty happy with what 5254 ended up building, but we quite nearly went in a totally different direction this season. Had we taken that road less traveled by and been a switchbot, **6502** is the robot I'd want to have built. This little shooter bot had a 2 cube scale auto, won a district, made finals at NC State, and was the 8th alliance captain in their division at South Champs. To which @deslusionary (Christopher Tinker) replied COOLEST:3847 Spectrum. Beautiful all white robot with clear polycarb intakes and beautiful designs carved into their extending arm. Prettier than Uppercut, even. Also, my eyes popped out when I saw their beautiful wiring. ELEGANT: 842 Falcon Robotics. Their intake is simple, only needs a router to build (as far as I can tell), and blazingly effective. In fact, their entire robot isn't overly complex and still remains effective. The elevator is thin yet fast, and the intake that flips backwards over the elevator is key to their autos. Plus, they are an exclusive member of the 4 cube auto club with 254 and 2471. This is a robot I will pass along to the CAD team to study well. EFFECTIVE: 254, for reasons stated above. SHOULD HAVE BUILT: As rookies, we should have built a 7179 or 6377 style robot. We wanted to make a ‘Snow Problems' Ri3D style robot but I think now that 7179 and 6377 nailed the design for a simple, effective switch bot. So @pkrishna3082 (Parthiv Krishna) replied I'm just going to pick robots that we played with/against for this one to help me narrow down the options. So many incredible robots this year. **Coolest** would definitely be **3538**. The side elevator and flippy arm (not too sure how else to describe it) was really cool to watch. They clearly had their cycle time optimized extremely well due to the ability to intake and score on either side of the robot. It also seemed to work well for them, with 2 district wins as the #1 seed, DCMP finalists, and Curie finalists. Honorable mention: **910** for their similar design but just slightly less-effective implementation. **Most Elegant** would be **195** with their smooth cube manipulation and scoring. Numerous NE wins and Einstein. Honorable mention: **2451** 's catapult and deadly switch cycles were fun to watch until you were against them. **Most Effective** is **4539** with a scary single stage elevator/arm and double lift. 2/2 regional wins and 10-0 through quals on Daly should speak for itself. Honorable mention: **3130** and **2175** double teaming the scale. **What we should've built** was 4607's Pitchfork most likely. Looking back, it probably would have been smarter to play for switch, and 4607 was the best switch bot we played with all season. Not to say that we didn't learn a lot and push our boundaries with our robot this year, but playing switch probably would have been a better strategic decision. Honorable mention: **2491** 's shooter was great at scale, but also very effective at switch, vault, and defense. So @lcraig910 (Louis Craig) replied 5050 was probably the best team to not win a blue banner this year. Watching them at the Lincoln District was amazing, because it was a week 3 event where many teams had not yet competed, making the competition boring to watch due to lower quality of teams, but they came in with super accurate cube placement and a great climber. They were honestly the best team there and I was surprised when 3604 picked 3641 over them- nothing against either team, both were good and deserved their win there, I just thought 5050 was the best robot there. Now, time for my list (RIP Houston champs, I wasn't there and can't give a fair opinion based off of webcast footage): -Coolest: **2767.** With their perfected swerve drive and aesthetically pleasing black-and-yellow design was awesome to watch. They also rarely missed placing cubes wherever they needed to go, and had arguably the bestbuddyclimbintheworldwiththeirramp. I have mentioned Stryke Force and their lift before, and for good reason- they are one of the best robots around, and they manage to pull this off in such a cool manner. They lost 10 matches this year (not as good as 254's undefeated record, but still pretty good), and only lost one competition- arguably the most competitive regular season event (I am including the 2 World Championships, maybe having one would be more competitive than a regular season event), the Michigan State Championship (and, even then, to quote Jackie Chan, “I was thunderstryked when they lost”). Plus, they have one of the best alliance introductions in Michigan. -Most Elegant: **195.** They did everything so well, and so smoothly. They tossed cubes on the scale in moments of pressure like Michael Jordan making a buzzer beater shot. They never choke, they always do what they have to do, and they always do what they have to do elegantly. Their robot looks amazing, it performs smoothly, and it is the perfect example of how to make a robot float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. -Most Effective: **2056.** They hit a 3 cube scale auton while having to do a turn around each time- no tossing of the cube over them, no fancy gatherer flip, just fast enough maneuvering to place the cubes quickly and accurately. One note about this video: it was in their fifth qualification match at their first district event. Their switch auton was also one of the best out there, and they effectively played every part of this field. To all those attending IRI- look out for 2056, they probably want to resurrect their streak, and they have the robot capable to do so. They may have broken their non-championships banner streak this year, and unfortunately kept their streak of tiebreakers killing them on Einstein, but OP Robotics once again made a machine that made the OP in OP Robotics not only stand for Orchard Park, but also stand for Over Powered. -What we should've built: My team, 910 (The Foley Freeze), had a successful season, but not as successful as 2016 (won the Windsor regional as the #1 seed and joined 1114, 254, and 2609 in the exclusive club of picking 2056 at a regional, and then went on to be finalists on the Carver division at worlds, losing to eventual champions 330, 2481, 120, and 1086) or 2017 (won all three district events and were finalists at our division at states, then went on to worlds where we ended our regular season as quarterfinalists). Earlier in the season, we struggled at our competitions. I (not my team, I have no clue what the rest of 910 thinks) blame this mostly on our elevator. It was slower at early competitions, and as a result, we weren't as effective at the game as other teams. I don't think (don't quote me though, I'm not 100% sure on all of our past robot's, especially the ones from years without much, or any, match video) we have ever built an elevator before- we have always been an arm team. However, we decided that an elevator was the way to go this year (as did most teams). I wish that we had built a robot like **1684.** They proved that an arm could be effective at power up. They ran a very effective switch auton (placing 3 cubes), had a unique, and effective, intake, and were able to attack the scale with the best of them. They proved that an arm design could work, and due to our previous success with arms, I wish we had gone with this design. But, hey, maybe it wouldn't have worked. An arm didn't work out for us too well in 2015 :(. So @Ryan_Dognaux (Ryan Dognaux) replied I'll focus on Indiana only here - **Coolest:** A lot of Indiana's robots looked the same this year, but 5010 did a crazy double reverse 4-bar linkage that was straight out of VRC. It worked pretty well and was also a little terrifying, so definitely cool in my book. **Most Elegant:** Without a doubt 1747. Their autonomous modes alone were magic. The speed and precision they achieved this season were very impressive; easily my favorite Indiana bot this year. **Most Effective:** Can't argue with the results, 868 killed it this year. From not being picked at their first event to ending up on Einstein, they got significantly better with every event they attended. **What we should've built:** I wouldn't change the overall design or strategy of our robot, but I really wish we would have integrated our intake & gripper into our elevator carriage. Because we spent a decent chunk of time on our swerve drive, other mechanisms suffered a little bit. I think we nailed it with our buddy climb though and am happy we kept going down that path even if it seemed a little bradleyandrea@example.org. To which @aaronfang (Aaron Fang) replied I'm also going to narrow it down to robots that we've personally seen or played against, so here goes! **Coolest** I was surprised at how well **5818's** rubber mouse pads worked at competition, and coupled with a suspicious #mostlyblackeverything color scheme, it was really a fun and cool robot to watch! (Terrifying to play against though :)) **Most Elegant** Although we ended up knocking them out of elims, **3925's** bot was super simple as an effective scale bot. They had almost everything they needed to be successful as a scale bot, and the complexity, from an outside observer, seemed to be pretty low. **Most Effective** **968's** separate claw and intake surprised me when I first saw it at LA, but I quickly realized how much of a beast it was at stacking and placing cubes! Quite an effective robot, and also a scary robot to play against! **What we should have built** Okay, well, I'm going to cheat my guidelines a bit, but I really do have to say that I wish we built **842's** bot this year. We got sucked a bit too hard into the trap of ramps, at the cost of our own elevator performance. Seeing 842 succeed with a simple, effective robot that initially just prioritized scale is something to keep note of for the following years. Then @jkuhlmann (Jacob Kuhlmann) said **Coolest: 971** is always making wacky designs and uses crazy programming skillz to make it work. When I first saw their robot this year, I literally started cackling with laughter. I love it!! Double-jointed arm? Intake pressure sensors?? Insane. This team is one of my all time favorites. **Elegant: 696** is the easy choice for me. Their reveal video makes it clear of their priority of industrial quality manufacturing and design over functionality of the robot. Not a bad thing! It's a unique and different choice that suits their team well. Their robot is gorgeous!! I can't wait to see it up close at Chezy and/or Beach Blitz. **Most Effective: 5026** had an amazing intake that (I think) was the only intake that grabbed the cube only by the cover and held the fabric. If there were others like this, point them out to me please! This was truly a genius design. Honorable mention: 1836's strategy was really, really good. Everyone is in awe when they're playing on the field. **What we should have built: 1323** intake is by far the best intake this year. An incredible number of teams copied this design making it one of the most copied designs this year (along with the 118 fork lift). #westcoastbestcoast Then @ThatSoftwareGuy (Jeff Tessitore) said **Coolest:** **148** comes to mind when I think about cool robots for this year. Uppercut was a lot smaller than other scale bots, but was one of the most efficient at cube cycles and had excellent strategy throughout the season. Our team visited their shop a few times throughout the competition season for auto and driver practice, so I got to see the robot up-close multiple times. Also, #HowManySpinsYaGot? **Most Elegant:** **2056** was fun to watch throughout the season. Their robot looked less cluttered than most other scale robots with a partner climb, but outperformed many. Taking it all the way to the #3 alliance on the Einstein field in Detroit, they took a relatively smooth design and made executing their strategies pretty. **Most Effective:** With statistics to back me up here, I'm pegging **254** as the most effective. With the simple yet ingenious idea of storing a cube not only _inside_ the robot, but also at the exact height level they needed to place into the vault, 254 became a fast, reliable cube cycling robot to any portion of the field. With a 53-0 season (though a couple of matches could have been a loss, 254 executed brilliant strategy and made excellent design choices to ultimately lead to their fourth World Champion title. **What we should've built:** **842** without question. Their robot was a simple scale bot with an intake that could lift over the top of their elevator, which gave them that extra leg up on other scale bots. After they forced a rubber match in the semifinals on Turing with 1806 and 7179, our drive coach for the event came up to me for strategy and I said “To be honest, we don't stand a chance against 842's alliance.” Unfortunately, their run ended after losing the rubber match to the #3 alliance consisting of 987, 2122, 2642, and 3663. Had we gone down the route of building a switchbot, definitely **2655** comes to mind. They had a three-cube switch auto and could absolutely shut down the opposing alliance if they needed to. So @nuclearnerd (Brendan Simons, 5406) replied Here's my list. It's heavily Ontario influenced: **Coolest:** * 2481's swervy pink arm was really fun to watch * 195's single extrusion elevator and camera-wrist looked awesomely alien * 4678's gripper/climber tool-changing arm blew my mind * 4039's scaler upgrade was a tribute to clever design and never-die spirit _but I can't find a photo!_ **Most Elegant: ** * 610sshooter was about as simple a robot as you could make (the most complicated part was the telescoping hanger), but great software and driving made it an event winner * 4917's telescopic hook made co-climbing braindead easy and fast. **Most Effective:** * 254 is going to sweep this category I think **What we should've built:** * Honestly I was pretty happy with what our team came up with. We're going to make some slight improvements for IRI, and use the opportunity to check out all of the other awesome ideas there. So @Paperclips (Paperclips) replied **Coolest:** **2791**. Hands down, Shaker's ramps were just incredible to look at up close, but their teleop scale scoring was nothing to bradleyandrea@example.org. The forward facing ramps were an elegant solution to the distance problems that teams could experience, and their beautiful PTO gearboxes were just awesome. **Elegant:** Even though they managed to beat us in both our regional finals, **340** 's robot was an elegantly built smooth and fast machine. With their immaculate placements and consistent autos, GRR really executed their robot well this season, proving that even #AllBlackMostThings works pretty well. **Effective:** It's hard to get more effective than 3 banners from the same regional (even though I've heard that some Californian team went undefeated seems fake :rolleyes:), but **694** 's skill with their roller intake and elevator just could not be matched by the end of the season. It's impressive to think that they rebuilt their collector between their first and second events, with the amount of success they had with iteration two. **What we should have built:** I was pretty happy with our execution this season, but I feel that we still could improve in build quality and execution. Team **1796** , the RoboTigers, did an amazing job with their consistency this season, winning all three regionals they went to. They had to maintain a three stage elevator and a shifting gearbox, which is really quite a feat. Additionally, their 3 stage elevator could collapse to a height that went easily under an adverse scale, which was something that we overlooked in design. Then @LazerHeadshot21 (LazerHeadshot21) said **Coolest: 6502** Their ‘dropkick' (wherein the intake opens up and the punchers kick it out) shooter is definitely the coolest mechanism that came out of this year and combine that with 2 cube scale autos and good looking decal it was a very attractive robot. **Elegant: 118** In my opinion 118 ability to place cubes on the 13x11 face really made the most effective use of the limited space on the scale. Not to mention the white and gold aesthetic is very professional looking. **Effective and What We Should Have Built: 5190** There is a very good reason 5190 was on the #1 alliance at all of the NC events they went to, and that was the fact they could beat any other team in a 1v1 scale battle, even leaving us on our back trying to catch them in one match at Asheville, and their 2-cube scale autos. Especially after they fixed all of the major issues with their robot, they were a force to be reckoned with, even taking on 330 and 4587 on their own and winning on the scale. Then @UnofficialForth (UnofficialForth) said **Coolest: 148** I still remember the moment when I watch their reveal with my roommate, a friend of mine from 45. We went absolutely crazy when we watched them pick up another robot. Such a design I remember dreaming up during my linear algebra class, and I never thought it would actually be realized. **Elegant: 3357** By far the most mesmerizing robot this season for me. Their precise placement of cubes was absolutely incredible, and their design was phenomenal. Having followed them all season, from game announcing some of their first matches in Indiana to watching from the front rows at their heartbreaking Einstein finals, their robot Chiron will always and forever have a place in my heart. **Effective: 7179 (and 254) **The little rookie robot of 7179 was amazing to watch play, its speed definitely made it a loved underdog at the Dallas regional. Though it could not scale or climb, it could do every other position with great finesse and skill, and I definitely would say it stood out to me as one of the more effective robots. The only one that can beat that? 254, winning every single match. That alone speaks for itself. **What we should have built: 1646** At first glance, 1646 doesn't stand out as a strong contender. They placed 29th and 27th in their two Indiana competitions. So why choose them? Well, upon closer inspection, you may notice I currently mentor 1646. At the start of week five, we had only a drive base completed and some metal for our elevator. Multiple people suggested to me that we go for a simpler design, like an everybot. We very well might have, if it hadn't been for a stroke of motivation. The kids suddenly were working together, solving challenges, and working as a team. I realized that, even though we might do better if we reduced our goals, those students needed to know what it was like to work harder than they ever had, with motivation and passion. By fostering that, we could start with that level of work ethic as soon as we began next year's build season. I believe it truly has paid off, they were able to go from a push-bot at the start of their first competition to a capable switch and vault bot by their second, and I couldn't be more proud. That is why it was important for them to build their robot. Because of that, I know that 1646 definitely plans to start its come back. Watch out Indiana, and get ready for Deep Space. **Penguin Power!** Then @LukeB (Luke Brandes (He/Him)) said I'm gonna switch it up, and stick to only PNW teams, because I really didn't see enough of any other regions to pass judgement. Coolest: 2930 The Sonic Squirrels had a very interesting design that was surprisingly very effective at vault and switch while also being able to put a few cubes in the scale when necessary. I personally believe it was a travesty that they weren't able to qualify for champs, and while their robot certainly wasn't the strongest I've seen, it was definitely a unique design. Most elegant: 2910 Bobby Neckorcuk from 4911 put it the best, 2910 was a “simply magic swervy-groovy cubey-lifty machine” and they've been on my watch list as one of the most incredible robots of the year. If you watch their matches you'll see their driver swerving around any defense and playing simply beautifully during teleop. Most effective: 2471 The Mean Machine had close to the best auto in the world this season, and for good reason. Their robot was clearly designed with autonomous in mind, and was well able to deliver. From their 4 cube autonomous to the never revealed 2 cube platform auto, they managed to sneak away with quite a few banners. They managed to win a District Championship event as a first pick two years running and I can't wait to see them perform next season. Robot we should've built: 2046 2046's robot this year was amazing, but the main reason that I'd want to imitate it with my build season is their no-frills build philosophy. Their robot chose to leave out a buddy climb in favor of a simplistic armavator and it worked out very well for them. If I was to head the design of a scalebot I'm sure that this is the design I would come to. @EricH (EricH) replied Just to make things easy… Coolest: 254 Most Elegant: 254 Most Effective: 254 What we should have built: NOT 254! (We'd have probably done better trying something closer to 5818, but we didn't do too terrible as it was.) Then @Chief_Hedgehog (Alex Jurek) said **Coolest** : **254** takes the cake, but **195's** Dark Knight was just scary on Curie. **Most Elegant** : **3538** \- RoboJackets Flipside was the coolest scale bot I have seen. The intake was on par and the ability for the intake to flip to score was incredible - 254-esque in it's ingenuity. **Most Effective** : **2767's ** Payload was just a beast. It was great to see this in action at Northern Champs. Honorable Mention: **4539** Kaotic had an incredible machine trouncing the opposition through most of it's matches in Regionals and then in Quals at Detroit Champs. **Bot we should have built** : **1836** 's Veto was what we should have built. It was incredibly versatile and the robot was faster in exchange than our Pitchfork. Driver practice would win out in this battle though **Honorable Mentions** : Combine **2846** 's auton with **5913** 's quickness and agility and it would be an unstoppable 2nd pick. 2846 cleaned our clock in Duluth and 5913 made us work to gain the away switch in the bradleyandrea@example.org. **Rookies** We have a lot of ties to many good rookie teams, but when it comes to robots, **7021** and **7048 **take the cake. 7048 ran into MN powerhouses **5172** and 4539 in the finals at GNR - tough draw. 7021 ran out of steam come World's, but they got a taste of excellence. My guess is that these two will be perennial powerhouses for some time. @DannyB replied Coolest: **148** Honorable mentions: **4613** , **291** Most Effective: **254** Honorable mentions: **842** , **5406** Most Elegant: **2767** Honorable mentions: **1323** , **2471** What We Should Have Built: **610** Honorable mentions: **2655** , **4481** After which, @Kevin_Leonard added KingTheFirst: > Most elegant: 2910 > > Bobby Neckorcuk from 4911 put it the best, 2910 was a “simply magic swervy-groovy cubey-lifty machine” and they've been on my watch list as one of the most incredible robots of the year. If you watch their matches you'll see their driver swerving around any defense and playing simply beautifully during teleop. Oh you mean from this post!: daswulfkralle: > Who are the 4911 CyberKnights? > > While we have a facebook profile, a pretty sweet website, and invite local teams to our shop whenever the weather is sunny (so like, once?), we've never really had a presence here on CD. > > I wanted to take some time and introduce the 4911 CyberKnights, a 5th year FRC team from Seattle, Washington. > > https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1eYyTA9o9P9RbaJillUCmhUN42ysJv-MetdgwSOnUhDBpjFmdJ_X84udFWAuCHh9Ea3qsdZOlrtmDZSWi-F1=w500-h500-rw > > So, just how did this silly team turn up on the field at Minute Maid Park? > > https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Dkw0egqa1RhhmZpmSj9xCzkmGscWsmvWcx6KAvliT5GNPdZg5TFrFqjBHOpicmr51ukZmNP7vryfF07271Wv=w500-h500-rw > > Even we are still awed by these past few days in Houston, and are extremely grateful and appreciative of all the support and congratulations for fighting our way into a pair of matches with an amazing alliance opposite the glass at Minute Maid Park in Houston. > > I'll take a quick part of this story to say, our success was not our own, and we have a huge network of incredible supporters who have helped us in our lab, in matches, on the sidelines, and in slack and texts over… well, 5 years! Firstly and a huuuuuge thanks to our alliance partners and friends 2910, 4499, and 5006. A collection of three awesome robots, and one simply magic swervy-groovy cubey-lifty machine. Incredible to meet and chat and cheer with all of you, I personally say thank you, and wish you all the best in the coming years, can't wait to play with you again! But theres so much more than that. > > PNW is simply a special, incredible, energetic, and fun place. From last years all-PNW alliance, to representing 5 of the 6 alliances on the Mass and Energy Fields, PNW is truly a family of teams helping each other with travel logistics, food, batteries (robot food?), scouting data, countless years of knowledge and wisdom shared freely for the benefit of enriching each other, and each and every handshake, high five, and fist-bump of good luck along the way. I would like to make specific call-outs to a few special teams who went above and beyond with their support during our first venture to Minute Maid Park - 3663 for building an amazing scouting system, 2910 for scouting with us through every match on Carver, 5803 for the knowledge they brought to our scouting meeting, the offer of tools, batteries, supplies, and especially the dinner sandwiches for our entire alliance drive team, 2557 who selflessly packed up all of our remaining gear in the pits while we were still at the ballpark competing and the truck had already arrived, 4488 for additional support of tools, food, and batteries, (not quite PNW) but 1678 for a second brand new air tank as a spare, just in case lightning struck twice, and of course 2976 for some incredible matches from the far side of the glass. Theres so many others who helped cheer, provided scouting data, brought bottles of water, and I can't possible list you all here, but thank you! > > https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/TYNo6cGfGNBS6ruS8VWnaRE9CPm_SpHM8LorxYEgeYvS58uZmwqzSTvtVpgzLnKcZidq0_YAdqoVZGnuohqu=w500-h500-rw > > Outside of PNW, this past year 4911 was graciously invited to help found a project focused on promoting growth and success in the FRC program, and providing resources and assistance to help all teams Power Up their game! This family, The Compass Alliance, shared out another wealth of knowledge and guidance that we sucked up like a sponge as we worked alongside world-class teams to help improve team sustainability for all of FRC. > > https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/LlK6vFhOe9SMIlNEDGsyX7sk0lpm9pVXRAkp9Ppp-yMqHf6IXTUQXB5_761R5CSg366Y79f9W6vfcMqPdueR=w500-h500 > > Well that seems as solid a foundation as any. > > So we've got some awesome friends, but with all the matches, strategy, planning, execution, retrospect, learning, and improving required to earn passage onto the Einstein field, we must have done something special this year to make this happen. And I think we did. > > As stated by our coach in a meeting yesterday - we cut our hours back, working only 5 days a week [instead of 7] to improve our focus. Clearly it worked, so next year we're going to cut 4 of those days out. We'll be winners for sure! But cutting hours did help. We had a bit more sleep, a bit more energy, and our focus did improve. We spent less of our our time unproductively, and produced more positive results. (I find some sessions of parking lot frisbee and pranks to be productive - keeps the energy positive.) > > This year, alongside cutting hours, we scrunched our schedule like a bunch of madmen. Head coach told us we would have our chassis CAD finished day 3, and a driving platform on day 14. (I wish he would have told all the mentors this…) Our “finished” robot would be functional and game-ready on day 29. (Madness I tell you!) > > We met the first goal. > > We beat the second goal by one day. > > We beat the third goal by two days. (… and still nobody told the mentors… ok fine, we knew when this happened.) > > Like many teams, we build 2 robots, which have multiple names: robot 1, silverbot, pixel, wobble. And robot 2, blackbot, voxel, weeble (competition robot. Also, after the full year - Weeble wobbled, but not once did we ever fall down!!!) Building 2 robots affords us more practice time for driving, software tuning, and breaking down. We had a lot of practice breaking down. Lots. We would break down, spend 2 hours diagnosing, refining a part in CAD, CAM-ing, cutting on the mill, installing, and within 5 minutes of installation - something else would break. The process repeats. Throughout all of our competitions we had a written log for post-match robot checks. As soon as the robot hits the pit, our crew gave it a full once-over, and any problems, issues, or failures were detailed in our Quality Log. After each competition, we poured over the pages of the Quality Log, and focused our improvement efforts to prevent any repeat issues. > > Throughout all of Houston competition we had only one failure when the pipe fitting on an airtank blew and we had zero pressure to support our arm and fire our climbing claw. (We think Weeble committed this act itself, in fear of getting wrangled and/or poofed in the Einstein round-robin matches…) > > Our drive coach and myself came up with a game in the middle of the season. We grabbed a big whiteboard, and wrote up 10 mock robot capabilities. We drew out a field and grabbed a coin for some help with randomness. With the setup complete, we gave each other 3 “robots”, and had to come up with a game strategy to beat each other. She ended up playing this game with every student on our strategy team over the next 4 weeks, and probably played over a hundred matches before she ever stepped foot onto a field. (None of our robots specified had a 4-cube auto. Our failure to dream and imagine big is a good lesson from hindsight here. Next year I'll make robot number 9 have a 15 game piece auto.) > > I hang out with the drive team during competition. My ritual is nice and simple; fist bump, pat on the shoulder, and a call for ‘good luck', ‘do it up', or ‘you got this'. Our driver has a rubix cube tucked into our drivestation. He's seen playing with it before every match. Our human player and operator make faces and joke with each other from across the field. Our drive coach prepares her last minute thoughts and ideas and calmly hugs her clipboard. I've reflected onto them that each match I look for 3 things - the drive teams' heads are clear and in a good place. Theres a solid plan that we can reasonably execute on. And the robot is functional for 100% of the match. With these 3 simple things, we can perform at our highest, and achieve the best possible result. (Realistically, sometimes 1 RP was the best possible result. There are teams who had better preparation for this contingency, there are teams who didn't. We had our method, and I wouldn't change much about it) (edit - The best possible outcome of Einstein final number 2 would have been donuts next to 148, but we had already deployed our hook. Our driver had decided not to climb though, because he didn't want to have to carry the robot down. It was a long, tiring day. I wish we had done donuts…) > > Autonomous has proven to be absolutely key in almost every recent FRC game. Our lead software programmer started early, working with a wooden board on wheels to write our auto path code. It was slow, and clunky. Our first meet we were the only bot that scored a cross-field scale auto. That was cool to watch. After every competition, our software team tweaked and tuned and improved all of our autos. More reliable, faster, more cubes. They also met with our drive team, scouting team, and strategy team to come up with the concepts for new autonomous modes. We looked at minor improvements like, should the arm be up or down after spitting a cube? Should we turn the robot around? Should we go halfway across the back of the switch and then stop to make sure we dont block an alliance partner running a multiple-cube auto? After watching all of our autonomous practice in the lab before District Champs, I declared to our software lead that we will never lift and score air. He thought the auto's could be reliable enough and took me up on a little wager - every time the robot failed to grab the second cube, he had to go meet someone from another team and find out 3 things about them. He got back to his laptop and worked hard to make sure the auto's were super reliable. At Houston due to this wager, he had to meet one person, and indeed met a programmer on team 3132. (Two programmers talking… I'm still not sure I believe him…) > > One very specific attribute to the success of our Einstein Alliance, was matching our 1-cube wall auto with 2910's 2-cube cross field auto. (I giggled every time it happened. I giggled a lot.) Many individual teams had 3-cube autos. Many individual teams had pretty good reliability. At the end of auto, we would more often than not have 3 cubes in the scale, and importantly, 2 robots starting tele-op from the scale position. Our first cubes were super close so we could start collecting and fighting for the scale. > > District events are madness. Often times as soon as you come off the field, the queuer is waiting in your pit to send you right back into the melee. District Championships and World Championships are somewhat more relaxing, given the copious amount of time between some matches. This year we changed up our process a little with our post-match meetings. Our full drive team, strategy team, an on-call engineering mentor, software lead, and match videographer would all huddle into a corner, discuss in depth how the previous match played out, and start formulating a strategy for the next match. We would bring in an older Surface laptop and re-watch specific portions of the match, identifying just how the planned strategy matched the real alliance performance. We involved our student software lead and an on-call engineering mentor to cover topics such as our autonomous success or failures, and any robot issues that came about during the match. Once we started this process in Portland, it radically shifted how we approached our pre-match alliance discussions, and it improved our driver and operator performance as they could learn from every match, identify post-auto drive paths, improve on-field communication, and just get better and bradleyandrea@example.org. Every relationship requires a foundation of solid communication. (Said the un-married guy. But don't worry, I'm fixing that in 2 months!) These post-match discussions provided us with a single channel of clear communication to call out positive plays, learn from mistakes, and ensure that our robot functionality goals were met. > > Our climber went through 15 iterations. Which is a bit odd, given that just last year, we did some math, figured out some gear ratios and motor power for how to winch up ~150 pounds. And this year well, we stole from our last years selves when designing the winch. (We literally stole the motors and gear spockets from a spare that we still had lying around…) But 15 iterations, some paper shims, a few cut ropes, and an idea origininally pulled from team 118's 2016 robot led to some spectacular climbs, all in under 6 seconds. I was told at dinner before flying out of Houston that back in Portland, our climber lead designer had intentionally re-wound the tensioning cord on the claw, to make the loudest THWACK possible when the two-piece design clamped down on the scale bar. Some teams like satisfyingly floopy features, this year we went for satisfyingly THWACK-y. > > A next note is kind of an interesting one - but something I do like to point out, and something I feel greatly helps those teams who are able to accomodate this: We CyberKnights have all 5 of our competition robots from all 5 of our years, assembled, drive-ready (mostly). We CyberKnights came from 4 years of FTC, and we still have all 4 robots assembled, and drive ready (also, mostly). Several times this season and last, I've had students ask how to conceptualize a component, how to mount a bracket, or similar. I casually walked over through our heritage museum (tucked into the darkest corner under all the dust) and would often find something similar and say “Hey, check out what Daniel did 2 years ago. Hows that look?” to which they would almost always reply “…” and then return to putting more clementines into the microwave or freezer (depending on the day). Having our entire collection of robots gives us examples of mechanisms, and for the older students, some recollection of what we liked and disliked about certain robot features in the past. > > This year was our first year with a mentor fully supporting our scouting and data collection team. In the way past, we couldn't scout our way out of a plastic bag. In the recent past we could identify a few solid picks, but we didn't have anyone really checking on the insubstantial data, or to soundboard thoughts and ideas about the underlying trends beneath the immediate and obvious data. And of course, it's always necessary to verify that the data collected was accurate and meaningful. (Yeah team 8319 scored 14 cubes in the vault last match. … Are ya sure? Also, who's 8319?) Having a mentor here empowered our lead scout to better understand how to watch a robot and provide meaningful qualitative data about that robot and/or drive team decisions. The quantitative data collection process smoothed out and increased in pace, which meant we could get accurate data to our drive team faster, giving them more time to prepare for upcoming matches. > > Outside of proper mentorship however, our lead scout owned our Houston pick-list. Friday night after dinner we had our traditional pick-list meeting with scouts, drive coach, and strategy group. (For this game our climber design lead and intake design lead became assistant drive coach and head of strategy for the competition season.) With a few additional PNW guests, we studied, schemed, complained that the HDMI port on the hotel tv wasn't working, and crafted a plan. The outcome was what appeared to be a solid list, that may have been rushed to completion due to the late hour. The brain trust left and all went to sleep. Almost. Unsatisfied that we hadn't taken all factors about climb success and min/max/average cube scores into our list of second and third round picks, our head of strategy burned the midnight oil to slightly alter and re-position several teams on the list. At 3am he woke our head of strategy to go over the changes and the reasons for each change. They then got 3 hours sleep, and at 6am presented the updated list to the strategy mentor and drive coach before the all-important alliance selection. Most of the team didn't know about this until Sunday, but it makes me proud to see the dedication and end-to-end ownership that our kids have in their areas of focus. > > Our head coach is a maniac. I mean, anyone in this business is. It's a good thing. I promise. His drive and passion (and sometimes over-zealous competitiveness) are constant motivators and model qualities that help steer the CyberKnight ship for the students, mentors, parents, and other faculty/administration at the school. There's a perfect blend that is constantly challenged by all teachers and mentors for when and how much to step in and support the young-ens, versus when to just drop em in the ocean like an apollo 13 capsule and hope the kid can open the chute on their own. Our coach isn't perfect, and trips on the line sometimes. But more often than not, he produces students who have pride and ownership in their part of the robot. They drive progress from prototypes, CAD, machining, assembly, to operations/maintenance and iterative improvement. Alongside ownership, his method produces kids with grit. One night in week 4 (it's all a little fuzzy now) we got a drop shipment of our robot 2 parts back from the annodizing company. At 5pm, coach made a declaration: We are not leaving tonight until this robot is assembled and driving. I took my turn and made my own proclamation: We dont have time to make mistakes. Take your time with every bend, every cleco, every rivet. Know the full process and build order. If anything looks wonky - call it out, get someone to help bradleyandrea@example.org. … Needless to say, by midnight, we found a piece of wonkiness and had to drill out, twist, clamp, and re-rivit one of the main tubes on our tower. 3am came soon after - with a driving robot. The next day the kids came into the lab, tired, but determined. Our head coach is a madman. But in a good way. (Some people reading may think this is cruel and/or un-necessary. My first job out of school was working for Amazon. My experience in FRC helped me excel, because I knew that I could push myself to deliver results. I had multiple consecutive 3am days to deliver on project deadlines. I was prepared. I had grit. I delivered. Thanks Tough Techs 151 for preparing me.) > > The CyberKnights are a 5th year team from Seattle WA. We are pushed hard by a head coach who knows what we are capable of. We focus and work smart to deliver on our goals. We are supported by an incredible network of teams from all across the globe. We love to share out what we can, soak in what learning we can like a bunch of red and black sponges, and work together with others, conversing in the universal language of robots. And we do it all with a big grin on our face. > > https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/a25P_xTLgRk4On-rlaRGXKRHIB2dx2TnuoUY1Lgi18qGDcY2hPDdqGdBJWIgMNE01xWz3An6iVkbwcCkRz9m=w500-h500-rw > > All the best, > > -B Then @jtrv (Justin Tervay) said I'll exclude 254 for obvious reasons… Coolest: There are entirely too many to count here – 2481, 971, 4678, 118, 987 to name a few. Most elegant: 2056 and 4003 come to mind. 2056 had probably the second most consistent 3 cube auto in the world (behind 254) and 4003 had this incredibly clever way of making sure that a clamp-style placer was able to reach where it needed to score. Really love how 4003 built their robot this year. Most effective: 3357 sure got the most out of their robot (and they aren't even done yet). I'd also like to shout out 2791 (I'm biased) for the most effective ramps that I have seen this year – no other ramps have come quite as close to their really smart motorcycle lift style ramps. What we should have built: I'm pretty happy with how our robot turned out, but if I had to pick a different design, I'd probably go with 1241. A really smart solution to deployable hooks that looks occasionally hilarious as they stab the rung until the hook latches on. Then @Chris_is_me (Chris is me) said **Coolest:** 118's cool. **Most Elegant:** If anyone says something other than 254 they're lying. **Most Effective:** If anyone says something other than 254 they're lying. **What We Should Have Built:** I think 3929 built basically the right robot - anything I would suggest they do differently would be in implementation details and not overall concept / scope. There was really not as much design variance this year, it feels like. The game had really one way to play it. So @Kevin_Leonard replied Chris is me: > There was really not as much design variance this year, it feels like. The game had really one way to play it. I don't know about that. The difference between the way a robot like 3357 plays the game and the way a robot like 195 plays the game is pretty striking, despite both being top tier robots. The differences in their design decisions were pretty interesting. Then @Tomithy (Tomithy) said **Coolest** : 4613, 6502, and 4607 **Most Elegant** : 2910, 2481, 2767, 1533, 254, and 1323 (basically 254 and swerve drives) **Most Effective** : 254, and even though it never played a match, 254's practice robot **What We Should Have Built** : 2655 or 6502 Then @maxxman (maxxman) said **Coolest:** I am going to have to go out and say 2702, I've spent my whole lunch looking for a video of their climber and I cant find it. They have by far the coolest climber in the world, and I would love if a member of their team could post it here. Then @deslusionary (Christopher Tinker) said Here's a match where 2702 climbs: The Blue Alliance ### Quals 9 - 2018 ONT District University of Waterloo Event Quals 9 at the 2018 ONT District University of Waterloo Event FIRST Robotics Competition in Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. After which, @maxxman (maxxman) added deslusionary: > Here's a match where 2702 climbs: > > https://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2018onwat_qm9 I should have been more clear in my post. They have a ramp to pickup other robots that they got dialed in at district champs. They didn't run it in Waterloo. They won the creativity award for it at districts as well. EDIT: Looked harder and found a video http://watchfirstnow.com/archives/264202187 @nuclearnerd (Brendan Simons, 5406) replied nuclearnerd: > Here's my list. It's heavily Ontario influenced: (snip) I forgot one of my favorite robots of the year **3538**! Their little 180 degree flipping offset wrist on an elevator was one of a kind this year, and super effective. It would have been tricky to pull off bc at all, let alone to look this good while doing it: The Blue Alliance ### RoboJackets - Team 3538 (2018)
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