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Unread 19-01-2012, 22:36
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AKA: Andrew Palardy (Most people call me Palardy)
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Re: Picking up from both sides

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom I View Post
...Even if we could pick up an unlimited number of balls, it'd still be better to only have one gatherer. Not only is it easier to build and maintain, it'd be easier for most to control. MOST (there are exceptions to everything) drivers have it easier maintaining ONE frame of reference, as in "I pick up from the front." The time it takes to switch orientation from driving forwards to back probably isn't that much faster than pulling a U-ey in an agile robot, so I'd say focus your efforts elsewhere.
The ability to drive backwards is a trainable skill, although we've included inversion buttons on our controls several times. It's more the thought that one side isn't the "front", but rather you can travel in any direction the robot is capable of (which, for most skid steer robots, is one of two directions plus rotation).

Last year, for example, we could do a full field run to the HP station "backwards", then invert and do the whole run "forwards" to score. If driven correctly, our "back" was almost always to the opposing team, we always backed through stuff and came at it head on, since it was just faster to do it that way.

Way back in 2006, we collected from one side and shot out the other. Even further back in 2001, we had a totally invertable (front/back) robot with a claw on both sides that could work either way.
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Last edited by apalrd : 19-01-2012 at 22:36. Reason: messed up the quote tag