Storing Tetras on Robot
 

I did a search and could not find anything so I figrued I'd ask:

I was just curious as to how many tetras you are planning on having your robot handle? Also where do you plan to store any extra tetras?


edit: I am fully aware that you can only grab one tetra at a time but as far as I know there are no rules against storing multiple tetras. If wrong please post rule and I will promptly delete this thread and sorry for any inconvenience

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

I think the rules say that you can only pick up one tetra at a time.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

At this point, it's unknown. But we know that we want to be as efficient as possible. If that means holding 10 on a grabber arm, so be it. Unfortunately, there are many outside factors that affect the number we carry. In addition, if you just leave a pile of tetras sitting on the field, they'll be stolen.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

That has nothing to do with it--you just grab them one at a time several times over.

As for us, I don't know. We may not even stash tetras on our robot--we'll see.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

We're not sure as to what our final capability will be, but a careful analysis of the game (backed up with basic, human-acted testing) seems to suggest that it will be vital to store some tetras on your robot, because the transit time is too valuable to be wasted.

That is all.

--Petey

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

I'm sure that it as many as your bot can hold. I would check the rulebook to be sure.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

we only plan on holding one at a time, but we have a shifting system that's just awesome(ly obvious). We may have less of a problem with transit time.

However, the debate on hold more vs lower center of gravity/lower weight went on for quite a while (almost 2 hrs straight) and most people still don't like what happened, but we agreed to a wierd system of managment this year, and the viceprezez agreed on hold one and shift gears.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

It will be quite difficult to hold multiple tetras on your robot because the tetra is almost as large as most robots, and tetras weigh 9 lbs each. If you have a stack of tetras on your robot, you will have balance issues.

I do not see what the problem is of having one of you alliance partners (going to and fro from the loading zones)and keep on feeding your robot tetras in a stack on the ground. The opposing team really couldn't steal the tetras because they are color coordinated... well they could just throw them out of the field, but that would be just plain mean, and not gracious professionalism.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

Thats alot of weight for 6+......
IF you store enough AND manage to cap, then go ahead.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

Not necessarily--

Consider the fact that, if you can store them to the "rear" of your robot (rear being defined as the end that is not the home of your grabber/forklift/arm device), you could conceivably use your tetras as an easy counterbalance that doesn't factor into your weight requirement.
This is not unlike the strategy our bot used last year--we were an extremely efficient ball feeder, and scored well because of it.

I do believe that it will be difficult to work on the field this year. With the weight and loading stations--not to mention the new paradigm offered by the addition of another team on a field that is, essentially, the same size as last year--I think we're going to see extremely complex on-field dynamics.

--Petey

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

You can only place a stack one high on a goal at a time? I thought you could pick up a stack of 2-3 and palce it on the goal.

I know you can only take 1 tetra from the automated loading station and then you have to back off and then go back on, but you can only place one on a goal at a time? Wheres it say that?

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

we plan on holding a few on the back of our robot. We haven't worked out exactly how we are going to do it, however our plan is to hould them upside down.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

I think you can hold more than one tetra at a time.
I think stacking may cause problems so we're sticking with the basics :D

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

There are more tetras available to the manual loading area than to the auto loading area. So It might be worthwhile to have a strategy of loading multiple tetras on the robot before placing them on the goal. This would involve going in several times to the manual station. While seemingly slower there might not be the traffic jam that will form with three robots on an alliance competing for the same auto zones.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

This was a question with our team as well, so i decided to check in the manual for it. One of the rules (G17) said that you could not load more then one tetra on the bot while it was in the loading zone, but it didn't say anything about actually being able to hold more then one tetra. So we were able to draw this conclusion: You can move your bot into the loading zone, load the tetra on it, have the bot move out of the loading zone, and then move it back, and repeat above. It mioght be more time consuming, or it might not. I guess its for you to experiment with and find out.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

if u check the FIRST Q+A, they answered the question and said that you cannot load more than one tetra at a time, but you are able to hold more than one on your bot.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

The update also says that they will try to move tetras during the game to make sure that no station "runs dry".

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

Our goal is to hold at least a few to limit transit time. If worse comes to worse, though (i.e. weight or control problems) then we'll just do one at a time.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

Our team just put together a tetra the other day, and we figured out that it would be harder to hold more than 2 tetra's at a time because of the power and everything.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

Do you have any statistics or testing to back that up ? Im really wondering how much of a load its going to add, and how fast we will be able to move with a load.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

We tested a few of our prototypes that we put together. Bob the Builder (That's his nickname) helped us with the calculations and all of that. We worked our way through that last Thursday. We have our results written in our Design/ Fabrication logbook.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

i like the idea of teamwork between robots. one could load them from the stations, stack them, and then pass them to another robot to cap a goal. while one is capping, the other is loading. i think it would be feasible to stack 2-3 tetras on the robot at roughly the same hight as the loading platform so that most cappers would be able to pick them up. put the third robot on defense, and theres a wholesome strategy.

Re: Storing Tetras on Robot
 

we are looking at about 4 'hands' right now. 2 of which could hold more than one(2 loaded my a human). we looked at makign somehting to hold them and it seemed liek it would take too much room, so we are just gunna use 1 or 2.