Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

Ground pickup, totally.

For proof, ask Bellarmine, Team 254. They're at the top in California ranks and they have it.

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

You misspelled poof. :)

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

Actually, team 1678 is at the top in California ranks. It's kind of a moot point, though, because 1678 also has ground pickup.

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

When speaking of 254, the correct answer is usually "both." They very very rarely settle for not doing something that might be of strategic importance. Just because they have it doesn't mean that it was a good strategic compromise, it just means that 254 doesn't like to compromise.

But, 254 is one of the top ten, possibly top five teams in FRC. Needless to say, most teams are not. So for "the rest of us" which one is beter? I'd say a pickup is more valuable than a 30 point climber at this point in the season, although this could very well change by week 6.

The real proof? 254 has both and they only used one at San Diego. Not to say that both were perfectly functioning, but they chose to only perfect one.

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

Our team decided to go with floor pickup this year (I believe a video of it was posted earlier in this thread). It seems to have been working superbly so long as there are discs on the field. We decided on the ground collector before the rule change about only throwing colored discs rather than any remaining white discs at the end of the match, so in some of our matches, we were more starved of frisbees than we would have liked.

That being said, this was where strategy (ie. a feeder bot shooting a few rounds of discs over half-court) became invaluable to us.

Another point I want to mention is that in dire situations, we found that if our driver needed to come to the feeder station for some discs, they could be thrown out in advance, so the floor collector could scoop them up and just rush off to score. Although it is by no means a "perfect" maneuver, ground collectors can still collect discs from the feeder stations fairly quickly if needed.

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

Not the best example if you witnessed their matches, but yeah I kind of get what you're saying. I mean I should, with my team picking the same strategy that you seem to like and the poofs executed!

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

FRC Team 1501 can both floor pick up and Feeder Station receive.
We also can pick up inverted frisbees off the floor.

Re: Floor pickup Vs. feeder station
 

A single data point does not make represent statistical proof. One might argue that Simbotics does not have ground pickup, and their numerical performance far exceeds that of 254.

It all depends on what is right for your team, and your strategy.

It's all too easy to say 'look at this robot'.

As I said before - the difference between a good ground pickup and a fast wall drop is amazingly small. The major difference is that bots with no ground pickup suffer in auton.