Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Do you mean at once? Because a "traditional" mechanism that can pick up six balls at a time would have to be at least 42 inches wide, ^{(6 balls x 7 inches per ball)} and a mechanism that can pick up 25 balls at once would have to be 175 inches wide, ^{(25 balls x 7 inches per ball)} which is almost three times the maximum allowable width of a FRC robot this year.


Are they being truthful? Maybe.

Are they joking? Maybe.

Can we tell these two apart from bytes of data surging across the Internet? Sometimes.

Should we give people the benefit of a doubt until evidence can substantiate/demote people's claims? Yes.


Instead of complaining about people's robot claims, let's just wait until the regionals come around and then let results speak for themselves. For all we know, some of these claims may pan out and actually be truthful. ;)


But then again, we have yet to see Beatty or Wildstang's 2006 robots. For all we know, Beatty may have invented some crazy infinite improbability vortex that can suck up all 80 balls and simultanously score them all into the center goal in autonomous, without breaking the 12 m/s rule. :p

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

I totally agree with you. It makes a HUGE difference training with other robots and comparing rather than looking at the robot without a comparison.

Tomasz Bania

P.S. 25 balls is a little exaggerant, but than again, they are foam balls, compactor anyone?

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

I wouldn't say that people are lying. Alot just exaggerate.
Every time we send our kids to go scout before regionals it's amazing how incredibly everybody's robot is working. Then you get to the regional and find it barely moves. Do you actually think people are going to come on Chiefdelphi and announce that their robot stinks?

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Youre right and people just love "bending the truth" to their advantage, noone can say that they have never done that.

Tomasz Bania

P.S. 25 balls is a little exaggerant, but than again, they are foam balls, compactor anyone?

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Our bot can pickup balls and hold over 25 balls. Will we pickup over 25 balls at one time in competition? I don't know, we will have to see how the game plays out. Our 2003 robot could stack 12 boxes, but 6 was probably the max we did in competition. Robots stacking was a rare occurrence in that game.

Will there just be 25 balls just sitting there in a group, waiting for us to pick them up? Probably not, and HP balls will probably account for a good percentage of stored balls. Unless ball hoarding becomes the dominant strategy, bots will probably shoot their balls before getting 25.

There is a friendly wager written in Sharpie on our practice field. If we fill up the robot (30+ balls) in competition, then one engineer owes another engineer dinner. I would put my money on the bot never filling up, but it might get close.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

another aspect here is TIME. you will have, at most, 80 consecutive seconds to collect AND SCORE balls. Since it's highly unlikely that balls will be clustered together, that means, in addition to actually picking them up, some driving will almost certainly be required. And there are also 5 other bots on the field with you, also attempting to collect (or prevent you from collecting) balls. So while your bot may be capable of holding 25 or 30 balls, all those other factors will make that very VERY hard.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

I think there are a few biases at work:

*outright lying - probably minimal on CD

*optamistic conditions - remember the robots that could stack like eleventy seven crates in the pictures. Well maybie so under idea conditions, wil ideally placed game pieces and no interference. How much stacking did we actually see? Fairly little.

*untested conditions - I think there are alot of guestimates in various polls occuring because teams have not actually tested their capabilities or finished their robot.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Oh, well, I would if it wasn't for the people on my team that would lynch me if I said our robot stinks. Let's see, how about the fact that I designed half of the thing? Well, not designed, more like, "winged". You know it's bad when ALL the motor mounts I "designed" was done on the fly. I think all the parts I touch will collapse the moment it touches the field. Oh, and the robot will spontaneously combust the moment it moves.

40 balls? Oh yes, we can store that much. We dumped 40 balls into the hopper and it all fit and worked. And we could gather that much...given time. I think that's the main problem - time. Sure, the hoppers can FIT that many balls, but do we have time to fill it up that much? Is it PRACTICAL to fit that much? I don't think so. We mainly went for "Make the box so big so that we'll never need to use it all". So, what difference does it make if we can store 40 balls, as opposed to someone being able to store 30? There's only 80 balls to go around anyways. My prediction is that the most people will ever get in their hoppers is around 20. Any more, and it's kinda of excessive.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

I would say that most people aren't lying when they say their robot can pick up 25 balls at once. I've personally seen our robot pick up all 17 balls that we have. Does that mean we'll be able to pick up that many during competition, considering we've only practiced by ourselves and balls scattered around a small area? Probably not, but we'll see once we get there.

Now if your asking if people have the ability to hold 25+ balls, I would say that the people who say they can are telling the truth. Whether they will be able to achieve that during competition is something that we are going to have to wait and see.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Do you have a picture of the pickup mechanism that can handle this?

That might end this whole discussion right now. :D

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Oops... looks like I've worded that a little stupidly... meant to say that our robot is capable of picking up and holding that many without a problem, not that many at once...

Our hopper can definitely hold at least thirty, but I doubt that it will ever get to that point. If you really want to, you can find pics of 1712's robot in the picture gallery. I think there may be a picture of it filled with balls there...

I stopped thinking after thursday, 11:59 PM... those submissions can really tire you out...

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

You can collect balls while you are playing defense or being the backbot.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

Sounds truthful to me especially after seeing some wide-view(?) robots with wide pick-up devices.

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

i think it is more teams r saying how many they can either store or pick up in a whole offensive round..

Re: a bunch of ball II
 

I know our team did a great job picking up balls at the scrimage and we had a fairly lage hopper capasity. so i think its posible