Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

...we would have prepared a block-469-from-reaching-the-tunnel autonomous program BEFORE we reached the Curie finals, rather than during the 5 minute break between matches.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Wouldn't we all? Lol.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

The Poofs tried that and didn't quite get there in time after clearing all 3 balls.
They had the mode work almost perfectly on Einstien.

That wasn't the only way to do it though.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Our kicker design did what we wanted to, so I don't think we would have improved our kicker.

We could effectively block 469 in autonomous, so that wouldn't need to be worked on.

Probably our biggest limitation this past year was the bump. We were forced to use the tunnel due to our design, and while the limitation only affected us when we versed 469, I think it would have been a bit quicker to climb the bump rather than driving to the tunnel. We realized at our first offseason competition that it would be fairly easy to convert our robot into a bump bot, but figured that there would be no point.

We also should have looked into hanging a little bit more. We had both horizontal and vertical hanging ideas, but we threw the idea of hanging out the window early on. We should have at least prototyped, but we decided that a hanger wasn't needed.

Lastly, we should have worked harder on scouting and public relations. It seemed like we a good team that the other good teams were ignoring, yet a team that the rookies and 'bad'(for lack of a better word) teams were looking up to. Don't get me wrong; we enjoyed the praise and attention from the rookies, but we wanted to play with the powerhouses more often than we did.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

If 1647 could breakaway again, I know we would have probably just modified and read the rules a little better to modify our deflector. It wasn't as perfect as we thought but it worked in Philly fantastically. Again with what someone else brought up with the balls on the wall, I had a great idea about making a swerve/mecanum drive that would have a single shooter like ours and get up against the walls. With our bot, it was difficult to situate ourselves behind the balls so we would have worked on that as well.

There are many things that we would have loved to tinker with but I believe that we played a great game this year and will continue to do so next year.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Use physics to get the ball to land in the goal every time... And fully auto

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Re-do our kicker and the overall design. Possibly even add a ball magnet.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Our biggest priorities

1. ball control

2. ball control

3. ball control

When you control the ball... you control the game.... Pele'

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

I think to a certain extent, when you get to the "top level" of competitive play, the good teams are paying attention to the field already. They scout better than anyone, and as a result they'll take careful note of how well you do regardless of how much attention you draw to yourselves.

As for the balls-on-the-wall problem, I thought my team had a pretty wonderful solution for that: Lexan on the front tilted inward about 10 degrees. Driving against a wall "rakes" the ball into the center, at which point our vacuums would grab on. This small and subtle difference saved ball after ball from being pushed away from our robot and gave us a huge competitive edge over other "push bots" since we wasted a lot less time per ball.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

When we shipped our robot to Wisconsin, we had a hanger on our robot. Unfortunately we were about 5 lbs. overweight and no one seriously thought about cutting the weight we needed to cut to keep it. Now, I realize exactly where we could have cut most of the weight we needed. The place: our ultra-tough kicker. The reason: as part of our design we had a massive 6-8 in. diameter delrin drum (swiss cheesed of course) but in reality we only needed half a drum (or no drum at all). It weighed a good ten pounds. Cutting a third off on the front portion certainly would've helped.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

What I'd do: Actually smack the seniors over the head who refused to do any math or physics calculations and just slapped parts on the robot and said, "It'll work". It failed. Miserably. Our hangar was about 3 inches too short, getting over the bump was an arduous task and took almost 10 seconds if done right, the kicker kicked about 4 feet and it had severe issues turning...


Lesson learned: Do some frackalacking calculations and design work people.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

We would probably spend less time on our repeater-crossbow-kicker idea and we would probably build the flipper arm on the bottom of the robot that would flip it on to the platform from the bump that I thought of last week.

This would have been nice because it would have allowed us to get what is essentially a hanging robot but would be much easier and much faster. Also we never lost a match by more then a point, so those two points would have been very nice.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

By the end of the season (after IRI end of the season, not after cmp end of season) I was very happy with the robot. Most of the changes I would make involve making already-made changes earlier:

1. Should have had a pincher collector from the beginning, and tuned it during the last few days instead of building a top roller then building/testing the pincher roller after the robot was bagged.

2. I should have implemented the automated ride height modification software at the beginning instead of before IRI. This seriously helped with chassis rock and improved turning. Before that, we had to balance the two, and too much rock leads to carrying penalties while to little leads to difficulty turning.

3. 4-motor hang? With the arm controlling ride height, needing constant power to operate, I wouldn't do this. I think we hung fast enough.

4. Talk to judges better - As a programmer, I always want to win the Innovation in Control award.

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Can my team win that for the lack of controls? (Autonomous all the way)

Re: If you could Breakaway all over again...
 

Sounds like it would work, assuming your full auto program actually worked.