Re: Lets do it again...
 

Sure.

Our 2015 robot was by no measure a dominant tote handling robot. While the claw itself held onto totes reasonably well, the system by which the totes were staged for the claw was sort of an afterthought. We relied on totes exiting the chute door consistently and landing on the floor in the same position every time. By the time we hit the competition field, we realized that this was not something we could rely on.
Adding an active intake system would have solved this issue and made us a better tote handler. We later confirmed this at our final offseason event where our newly installed intake system helped us to increase our tote output from 2-4 totes scored per match to 8-10 totes scored per match.

As a team, we like to look at everything we do, from great success to disappointing losses, and we try to learn from them to continuously improve. Every experience will yield a powerful lesson learned.
I believe that critically evaluating all past experiences, regardless of win or lose, is a skill that will make average teams good and good teams great.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

In another note, here's a part full regret, part funny story. In 2009, you'll se that we were ranked #2 at the GKC regional. We were (I'm told, I wasn't even in FLL at the time) ranked #1 consistently up to our very last match. About thirty seconds after autonomous ends, another robot, I don't know which alliance, tips over onto our robot, landing directly on our emergency stop switch. There's nothing we can do, we just have to sit there for the rest of the match. We still ended tip #2 at the end of the day, but we didn't get any farther than semi-finals. Still our best year, AFAIK.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

2015?

Re: Lets do it again...
 

Lunacy, that game looks so cool, I want to play Lunacy

Re: Lets do it again...
 

You know, I thought this was a universal truth about FRC, as well. We call it "positive control".

Then 195 puts out a robot that drops balls from their intake onto their catapult and dominates the New England District.

I don't know what to believe anymore.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

2014 because that was a fun game and I feel like our team had so much potential to do better that year if we only made a few changes.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

There's lots of exceptions to this rule, and it's worth studying when they matter. The key is to realize that this rule is most applicable when you are holding multiple, compliant game pieces, or game pieces that need to be in a specific orientation to be scored.

2013 - Almost every competitive Frisbee hopper in the world was a gravity fed bucket. Why did this work? The bucket controlled the orientation of the Frisbees, the bucket dimensions prevented Frisbees from sliding into or past each other, and the rigid nature of the Frisbees prevented them from sticking or jamming.

2015 - No defense and nesting features of the game pieces made active control of everything not a huge deal.

2016 - One game piece, relatively short distance from intake to shooting position, protected zone for ball to gravity drop in without defense disturbing the ball, ball can be fired from any arbitrary orientation.

Knowing when breaking a "hard rule" can drastically simplify a design is a key skill in FIRST. I think many FIRST robot designers have been unwilling to let go of a cardinal rule to the detriment of their robot at least once before. Or sometimes, many many times...

Re: Lets do it again...
 

2008, we completely overlooked actually shooting the ball over the truss. Bot ended up doing well but that could have made a big difference. Also, not integrating the Gen 1 AM shifter into the wheel-well would have certainly helped at champs when the thing died :(

Re: Lets do it again...
 

2015
Our team has some trouble with agreeing on a design and while we did alright, we could have done better.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

Hush. Us old people have bad memories.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

2013.

Classic over-complication of strategy by also trying to go after the floor frisbees in auton. Was the year we had a hard lesson about simple things that cycle fast.

There were a lot of shoulda's from that year.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

Definitely 2013.

Extreme robot diversity at the highest level, great depth of strategy though more favoring alliance composition, and super fun to watch to boot.

Re: Lets do it again...
 

I don't know how difficult it was for other teams, but 469 went through a pretty significant amount of iteration to make sure frisbees didn't jam in the bucket. Passive systems often take a bit more finagling to work the way you want them to.