[IKE]

The "little bits" here and there can kill you on the mini-bot. Our initial prototypes were 0.5 lbs heavier than we estimated (5 lbs). We had "geared" to be on peak power for those runs, but the 10% heavy also meant we needed about 10% more torque which took us down about 10% in power. Thus the 10% more weight would have added about 22% (1.1/0.9=1.21), but weight there is more... This 10% more mass also added additional friction which meant more torque, and again lower speeds therefore (1.15/0.85=1.35). Thus a mini-bot that we thought would climb in a little over 3 seconds ended up taking over 4 seconds (3.25 * 1.35 = 4.4 seconds). With certain mini-bot designs, a little weight can kill the performance for that design. This was initially very frustrating, but after review it is much more encouraging.

Back to some more iterations.