point of lower deck?
 

Just a uestion what is the point of the lower deck on the goals?

I suppose it is there to mount the casters on. Without them, it would be much harder to drag around. :)

-Quentin

I suppose that FIRST got tired of goals breaking left and right. Having to tape them up after everyother match must have gotten tedious last year.

Thats the problem with movable goals, which I think will be more comman in games to come, moving things have a tendency to break.

I still don't like how we can't even slide anything under the goals, that seems just a little unnessecary to me, casters are mighty hard to bust like that. But hey... Dem's da Breaks.

-Andy A.

they are extra weight
 

Well, just looking at one deck of the goal, it is a lot of extra weight adding onto the goal itself... Think about how much the plywood and all those steel angle around it weight.

And the point of the lower deck is to sandwich the steel pipes in between, because those are the only things you can grab onto this year. And, over all, it just make sense to have a cage/box thing as a goal, because this add a lot to the size of the goal itself. Those goals are pretty big if you have one in front of you.

Basically, Dean and Woodie just make the goals like this to add more pain and headache into your life for the next few months. ;)

I think the purpose of the double deck goals was to have goals with a clearly defined, and hard to damage "interaction zone" with the robots. The goals are heavy which will affect to some degree the designs we will use, but that affects all teams equally.

Real reason...
 

FIRST is trying to make this year's event more...broadcastable. If you have a bunch of balls in goals surrounded by robots, you don't get to see those bright colors. Thhis way, your robot MUST grab below the LOWEST point at which balls can sit. This way, boradcasters and spectators can see the balls clearly and easily!

Its all part of the ever-growing commercialism of the competition.

Fun, eh? :)

wow... interesting theory, i never thought of that...:confused:

And it sorta gives a heads-up on how well the human players are doing.