Robo-Cross B

[jander14indoor]

National results summary.
Broad trends, not individual results, you can get that from NSO.
There were 17 perfect scores, the tie breakers effectively broke the ties.
It took a 51 second run to win, the next three places clustered around 70 seconds, then an 80 and a 94 to round out the top 6.
The fastest robots were the scoop and dump ones, though success was far from guaranteed.
A fair share of arm based robots had perfect scores, some medaled.
A couple of devices I hadn't seen used duct tape conveyer belts. At least one got a perfect score, don't remember about the other. Pretty fast.
One device used a pair of brushes rotating around vertical axis to bring the objects into a central cache.
11 incomplete tech data, mostly around labeling the motors clearly.

What to look for next year (mind you, the committee hasn't finalized these, nor has the summer clinic tired them).
We've got to do something to cut down the number of perfect scores. Expect things like forcing you to sort the object by having multiple bonus jugs. Perhaps shorter times as you advance, regional to state to national. Harder things to pick up. Grammatical fixes to reduce the number of clarifications.

Overall, a very impressive bunch of robots again this year. The competitors were great as always, helping their opponents when asked, trying their best on the competition itself. Unfailing polite, even when challenging the event supervisor on some point they were passionate about.

Thank you for making this such an enjoyable event to supervise,

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[Toms_42]

A couple of devices I hadn't seen used duct tape conveyer belts. At least one got a perfect score, don't remember about the other. Pretty fast.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

One of those was ours. We had consistently gotten 1:30's in practice, but did somewhat more poorly at nationals under the stress. WE used meccanums and the belt.
Our best time was 1:18 in practice.

EDIT: My team-mate reminded me it is a design we will likely continue to use, so the video has been removed.

One device used a pair of brushes rotating around vertical axis to bring the objects into a central cache.

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

I saw this one run while waiting for a verdict on a near DQ in rotor egg drop due to Tim Taylor's incorrect registration schedule. It looked like there was some debate over the validity over their perfect score, as it was sitting there for a long while after they ran. What was the verdict?

[mjcox2000]

11 incomplete tech data, mostly around labeling the motors clearly.

My team was one of those who labeled the motors incorrectly. We had a drawn-out debate with Mr. Anderson regarding the meaning of the following rules text:

3.a. Illustration... must show:
3.a.i. All motors

In our technical documentation, we had a picture of the robot, but some motors were not visible. We had pointed to those motors with arrows on the illustration, and labeled them appropriately.

However, Mr. Anderson believed that "show" (3.a.) meant show visibly, so in his opinion our documentation wasn't complete. We believed that it meant indicate, so we thought our documentation was complete.

We successfully filed an appeal, and the appeals committee sided with us, giving us back our perfect score. However, I'm wondering why all motors should be visibly shown. How will the rules address this issue for next year? Also, who agrees with our side, and who with Mr. Anderson's?

Matthew Cox

[Toms_42]

11 incomplete tech data, mostly around labeling the motors clearly.

My team was one of those who labeled the motors incorrectly. We had a drawn-out debate with Mr. Anderson regarding the meaning of the following rules text:

3.a. Illustration... must show:
3.a.i. All motors

In our technical documentation, we had a picture of the robot, but some motors were not visible. We had pointed to those motors with arrows on the illustration, and labeled them appropriately.

However, Mr. Anderson believed that "show" (3.a.) meant show visibly, so in his opinion our documentation wasn't complete. We believed that it meant indicate, so we thought our documentation was complete.

We successfully filed an appeal, and the appeals committee sided with us, giving us back our perfect score. However, I'm wondering why all motors should be visibly shown. How will the rules address this issue for next year? Also, who agrees with our side, and who with Mr. Anderson's?

Matthew Cox

That's odd, If I remember correctly our drive motors were not entirely visible in our pictures, but we had boxes around where they would be.

[mjcox2000]

11 incomplete tech data, mostly around labeling the motors clearly.

My team was one of those who labeled the motors incorrectly. We had a drawn-out debate with Mr. Anderson regarding the meaning of the following rules text:

3.a. Illustration... must show:
3.a.i. All motors

In our technical documentation, we had a picture of the robot, but some motors were not visible. We had pointed to those motors with arrows on the illustration, and labeled them appropriately.

However, Mr. Anderson believed that "show" (3.a.) meant show visibly, so in his opinion our documentation wasn't complete. We believed that it meant indicate, so we thought our documentation was complete.

We successfully filed an appeal, and the appeals committee sided with us, giving us back our perfect score. However, I'm wondering why all motors should be visibly shown. How will the rules address this issue for next year? Also, who agrees with our side, and who with Mr. Anderson's?

Matthew Cox

That's odd, If I remember correctly our drive motors were not entirely visible in our pictures, but we had boxes around where they would be.

At least 1 of ours was completely not visible; 2 were partially visible, but were deemed visible enough.

[jander14indoor]

We'll certainly try to clean up the rules.

And I wouldn't sweat too much whether others agree with either interpretation. The appeals committee ruled, like I said, I'm OK with that. If I can't make the rules clear enough to withstand appeals, more work needed on my part.

Regards,

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[Toms_42]

We'll certainly try to clean up the rules.

And I wouldn't sweat too much whether others agree with either interpretation. The appeals committee ruled, like I said, I'm OK with that. If I can't make the rules clear enough to withstand appeals, more work needed on my part.

Regards,

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

Yeah, we have lost points for the jug strattling two zones before. Some object were counted as D and some C.

[madergaser]

Hello all,

I am not very active on this forum, but I believe that Robo-Cross is going to be an event next year.
If anybody wants help in the event, I am going into Division C next year, and I may be able to give you guys some tips; just PM me.

GL to everyone next year!