[EricH]

Originally Posted by lemiant

During the upcoming season I am looking to train the students in eight common robot subsystems, below are my personal favourites, which would you choose?

- Drivetrain
- Linear motion
- Arm
- Kicker
- Intake
- Hopper
- Hanging
- Shooters

You're way too specific. The final seven can all be lumped together in different ways. Some of them have only been seen once; others are seen infrequently; still others crop up most years.

There are two ways that I can think of to break down a robot's subsystems: function and actuation.

Function: Drivetrain, arm/lift/internal transport, end effector/manipulator, acquisition. The last 3 are all interconnected; internal transport is between when you pick up the piece and when you score it, which may or may not be the same mechanism. (If you have an arm, it is often the same mechanism. But for 2006 and 2009, it usually wasn't.)

Actuation: Electrical, pneumatics, software, mechanical. Your standard basic subsystems.

When you combine function and actuation, you get 8 subsystems. Is there overlap? Yep. It's kind of pointless to have an arm that isn't powered by something...