pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

Re: pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

Congrats,
We really enjoyed playing with 118 in Archemedes this year.

Re: pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

The Skills Challenge seems like a really cool idea, though I imagine with "only" 27 balls power dumpers around the world could get close to the 54 possible points. What if the challenge was done at, say, IRI... 3 goals, 60 balls, 1 minute? That would be a test of one's skills in managing a large ball capacity, reloading missed balls, and ball throughput...

Needless to say 148 would likely do just as well at such an event, with a very large capacity and good ball throughput.

Re: pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

The VEX Robotics Competition added two skills challenges in 2008-2009 and they were a lot of fun. With more than 260 robots competing in the World Championships, it added two more chances to win that didn't require good alliance partners or a favorable draw in competition matches. The top teams at the Programming Skills Challenge were the best in autonomous, and the top Robot Skills Challenge teams were the best offensive scorers. My prediction is that 2009-2010 will have a lot more teams specializing in the Skills competitions.

If there is any logistical way (with only one field) to incorporate Skills Challenges in FRC, I'm sure the teams would enjoy it.

Re: pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

The skills challege was Andrew Lynch's idea, he does a lot of VEX. 148 finished with a few seconds to spare even with "only" 27 balls.

The challege itself was done in about 25 minutes (with 8 teams) between alliance selections and elimination rounds.

Re: pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

Its about time we had time travel...

Re: pic: Texas Robot Roundup: Winners
 

Heh, I meant August 15th, 2009.