Re: Disappointing year for Incredible Drive Systems
 

team 702 was there to see 330's match against 980 a few times even saw it tip once just to see it right itself up with these defensive wings and wedges it had.

the Socal Regional was very hard and proved to be drive train heavy, not just about pushing other robots around but speed to get around the field and great turning, this year (many years before in socal i hadnt seen this) due to the kit bot system every single robot turned and ran around (some stop tho due to tech problems)

in 702 scouting drive train was put first above a good arm, and the scouting predicted every match from the time we got there to the time we left, and was not wrong ever in any of them. the best and most worry some robots continued to be those with great drive trains. even the RAWC's machine ARIES 968 whose arm had not show much in the entire competetion got choosen but its drive train was awesome and it made it all the way to finals that way.

tho our team did not invest the same effort into a awesome drive system we ranked 3rd and went to Quarter finals (thanks to 599 and 1138) we ruled!!!, but i suspect that if anyone in socal woulda taken the time to make a crab bot or omni bot then we would be 4th lol :p


-Osc-

Re: Disappointing year Drive Systems --contact?
 

I am a mentor for a rookie team.

I guess my reaction is very different from those posting here. It seems most wanted more 'contact action'.

Personally I was disappointed at Purdue by all the pushing and banging. Teams were moving halfway across the field and whacking into other robots. At Western Michigan I saw a lot less, and I found it more exciting. Some wonderful robots were really exhibiting their manipulation and drive capabilities. The defense was strategic, not brutal.

Maybe it's just that I like tennis and golf and racquetball where part of the whole game is to see what both you and your opponent can do; you take turns, you applaud a great shot. You don't cough or jog his arm to screw him up.

I loved seeing the high scores. To my mind, it's a lot more challenging and elegant to maneuver and put ingenious manipulation mechanisms to work than to just plow into people and push them around. I have a feeling that's what Dean and Woody were talking about, too--why the game was devised this year to reward scoring more than suppressing others' scoring.

I guess I'm just not really normal.

Re: Disappointing year Drive Systems --contact?
 

well said~
I totally agree with you.
Physical defense and interference are two different things in my opinion. Too many robots bang and ram when all that does is take away from the game, and ruins 6 weeks of hard work to develope a robot that can achieve the tasks. Building a robot that only plays to keep others from completing the tasks when it can't itself is ridiculous.

Re: Disappointing year for Incredible Drive Systems
 

Well, in response to the beginning question of the thread...

It may be disappointing for many that an incredible drive train is not the absolutely Huge advantage it has been in past years. However, I think that this aspect of the game is one of the best things that FIRST has done. I think that because it is easier for rookies to put together a chassis that will work tolerably well, the game is in fact more exciting!

I think that being able to drive well still is an important advantage, but it is not essential to the game. A tolerably good drive train with a decent arm can almost always score just as many tetras as a killer drive train with the same arm. It is just not that important. But I consider this an awesome aspect of the game because it allows anyone to feel their robot is a success. Having a sweet drive train is awesome, but I don't feel that it should be the main focus of the robot.

Maybe next year a sweet drive train will give more of an advantage to teams, but for now, I think this year is a great game, especially because a complicated drive system is not as important.

Re: Disappointing year for Incredible Drive Systems
 

i somewhat agree. While bots did not engage in large amounts of pushing at either sacto or svr, speed was definitely important. 254 used their speed incredibly well to be able to dash over to the over side and cap a goal quickly before other bots had time to try and stop them. While custom drive systems were not as advantagious as they had been previously, a good custom drive system was still useful and effective

Re: Disappointing year for Incredible Drive Systems
 

At philly, some of the robots were built for defense. like team 358 was awesome n 1402. so i thought, from our regional, that there was a fair amount of pushing n shoving when it came to tetra blocking.

n i actually wished we would have built a better drive system, but instead we had omni wheels which was really bad in terms of pushing. but if we did have a better drive system, i think we would have been more defensive

Re: Disappointing year for Incredible Drive Systems
 

:cool: Our team's robot was made specifically for defense and worked great at it. It was not a rammer but more of a moving roadblock, a very fast one too. With a 2 speed transmission, 2 omni drive wheels, 4 pneumatic tires and all wheel drive i'm glad we chose a defensive strategy that can also score points by placing tetras underneath. On the plus side no penalties.

Re: Disappointing year for Incredible Drive Systems
 

There have been some incredible drive systems created this year. Team 190, 211, and 357 omni directional drive trains using a mechanum wheel. I believe if not all 2 of these three teams won one of the engineering awards. If you have not seen any of these three teams, what a mechanum wheel does is it is designed to slip under friction so that the robot can move laterally. However unlike an omni wheel, the mechanum wheel in fact is hard to push side to side. See the thread posted below for a picture and some better descriptions. Even though you guys may have an awesome gear box that has multiple different speeds, and can shift on the fly, it has been done before. While you guys built what sounds to be a very nice and robust drive-train, people, unfortunately, do not see the big deal in just reproducing something that has been done.

This does not mean that you have to get all discouraged about it. It just means you may have to work a little bit harder to find something new and apply it towards your goal. Trust me if you are going to Nationals, you will be able to show off the potential of your drive-train.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=pic%3A+Jester