[Madison]

I've selected a fair number of "boxes with wheels"* as alliance partners over the years and we have good success with them provided a few things are true:

-- they understand their role and embrace it.

-- they have a completely developed understanding of the rules, but also how the game plays. They need to understand the metagame as much as they understand the real game and be able to interfere with our opponents in intelligent, effective ways. Driving around and smashing into things won't cut it.

This year, there is a very simple, valuable role a team without a functioning basketball manipulator can fill. It involves the bridge, of course.

If you're unsure that you'll be able to achieve a mechanism to lower the bridge, instead make certain that your robot has a flat surface that is, say, 10.5 - 11" above the carpet. Make it 3-4" deep and at both edges of your robot. Now, beyond that, build a taller frame -- two vertical members or even flags could suffice here -- that will hit the bridge when your robot drives below it.

The idea here is that you're going to park your robot below the bridge and act as a hard stop for one or two balancing robots. By reducing the range of motion of the bridge, you can make balancing occur more quickly and more reliably. You then need to back away from the bridge at the end of the match so you aren't touching it.

Want to get fancy? Put some switches or other sensors in place where the bridge will sit on your robot. Use those switches to provide feedback to your drive team that they can use to let their partners know if they're balanced or not (e.g. if the switches are pressed, the bridge isn't balanced).

If you could do this and you could position your robot on the field reliably, you'd probably be fairly successful on the field -- maybe even top 8 at some events.