Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

After watching some of the really good dumpers I'm not sure relaxing the rules would result in robots that worked any better.

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

Did that :D

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32412

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

oh my god...
roffle

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

It was origionally built to launch baseballs. More info about it here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/32122

There’s a link to a video somewhere in the thread. It’s scary.

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

I personally agree, I've just heard a lot of talk about the "expand to any size" rule's omission stifling creativity and whatnot, so it'd be cool to see all the interesting designs.

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

We might have added some "wings" to pop out at the sides of the front to help collect balls, to funnel them into the harvester from a wider area. I can't really think of anything else.

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

We had discussed going with a near replica of Spikes robot from 2006 and then we realized we couldn't expand anyway and we'd probably score on ourselves:ahh:

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

You would definitely have seen people covering the trailers, which would have killed the game. If, however, we assume they only allow you to expand forward and to the side (I.E. no expanding backwards over your own trailer) you probably would have seen very similar designs but that incorporated deployable chutes to extend directly over the opponents trailer and deployable arms to better collect balls. I don't see why anyone would be worried about breaking things. We've never had big issues with it, once we designed properly.

Re: How would you have built your team's robot differently if the robot could expand?
 

Assuming covering trailers and interlocking between bars (think 2002) was still illegal.

"Arms" (for lack of a better word) to help contain opposing trailers.
An expandable hopper intentionally designed to collect balls that "overshot" our trailer.