Quote:
Originally Posted by ThirteenOfTwo
No, it's not possible for one alliance to control all of the balls
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Of course it is. An almost arbitrary number of balls can be placed in the corner of your alley, which a diagonally-parked robot can protect just by sitting there.
Don't be so quick to dismiss strategy... Besides awesome versatile robots, it's what wins games every single year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blackrocks0
So if this is the case you will need to cross the bridge/barrier at maximum 2-3 times a game, so even if it takes a few more seconds to get over the bridge, it's better than using a lot of time/effort/weight to make something to cross the barrier.
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We were lucky enough to off-season prototype a drive train that is just about perfect for this particular game; it's heavy and rather expensive (though not really, due to the awesome donation from Gates), but as far as time/effort it was a clever use of band saws and day and a half of tweaking/re-tweaking to traverse the barrier... and as for weight, we're at 107 lbs including everything but a few wires.
It's likely too late for many teams, but I think that teams that can't cross the barrier will be bitten by it at some point this year. In 2010 we were first seed tournament champions at FLR without ever once even trying to cross the barrier (we could, sometimes, inconsistently...) There were several games at Championship where we could have won had we the ability, but we didn't, so we didn't.
tl;dr version: If studying the elite teams has taught me anything in the past seven years, it's that the drive train is absolutely the most important aspect of your robot, hands-down, no contest.