Originally Posted by Tom Ore (Post 1383925)

There are only six Iowa teams total. We (525) have never had a practice bot. 967 did have a practice bot this year, not sure about the others. (967 was the only team to bring a practice bot to our week 0 scrimmage and all six teams were there.)

Originally Posted by inkling16 (Post 1383961)

I am aware that there are only 6 Iowa teams. I had assumed that 525, 967, and 3928 all built practice robots, and it turns out I was wrong on at least one count, still not sure about Neutrino. My point was that there are incredibly few MN teams that made practice robots.

But I lose my own bet.

Originally Posted by inkling16 (Post 1383890)

This makes me curious, how many MN teams build full practice bots? 2052 doesn't, or Dragonfish wouldn't exist, I'm pretty sure 2169, 3018, 2175, 2177, and 3313 didn't this year. 2512 maybe?

My bet would be that there are more Iowa teams with practice bots than MN teams with practice bots. :yikes:

Originally Posted by mjc49 (Post 1384112)

3042 built a second bot this year. It was expensive from a time (labor) and budget standpoint, but we went into the build season knowing we had enough resources to do it. We were able to make improvements while the main bot was bagged and then bring the updated assembly with us to our tournaments. This was the first year we had the ability to build two bots.

Originally Posted by inkling16 (Post 1384119)

That is awesome! Minnesota teams are doing more than I give them credit for. Too bad you guys won't be at the state championship, I would have loved to get a better look at your robot.

Originally Posted by mjc49 (Post 1384112)

3042 built a second bot this year. It was expensive from a time (labor) and budget standpoint, but we went into the build season knowing we had enough resources to do it. We were able to make improvements while the main bot was bagged and then bring the updated assembly with us to our tournaments. This was the first year we had the ability to build two bots.

Originally Posted by compwiztobe (Post 1383949)

Try two months... for some. Of course, many people feel that bagging is necessary between build and regular season (I am not among them). If this is the case, since people want to treat this as a regular season event (which it is not) to crown a MN state champion, bagging is still required.

But bagging and the build deadline really need to be ditched altogether. It's a broken system modeled off an outdated competition structure. We no longer have a logistical, real-life ship deadline to get all our machines to the same event. All other teams at our events necessarily have had the same time since kickoff to work on their machine, unless they've invented time travel. As it is, the higher resource teams will still be able to practice when their bot is in the bag, while those with less are out of luck. But all of this has been said before...

I'm sort of confused about the MSHSL sponsorship too. Schools already had complete freedom to award robotics letters, compensate coaches, and the whole deal (we did). I struggle to see how MSHSL involvement is anything but limiting, introducing a plethora of rules about funding, district association, student membership, transportation, and plenty of other nonsense that teams are far better off dealing with themselves. The event operation has also been rather closed off in the past, at times charging entry fees, as well as the exhorbitant prices one might expect for any photos, merchandise, and match recordings from the event.

I look forward to official district status, since this will make qualification for any state championship event make a lot more sense, and hopefully give us more freedom to run these events.

Originally Posted by FRC3883FRC (Post 1384465)

Anyways back to the topic of state. With the 6 hour unbag period the team within 2.5 hours had a double ball auto working. Its really tight on time but is under 10 seconds. The Data Bits now have a 2 ball auto for state and wont be afraid to use it (hopefully). Here is the video of the testing. The first ball is 2 bag and tag bags stuffed inside. Had no second ball and it was more about picking up the second ball and getting that one shot. Hope to show it off at state.
2 ball auto working