[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by chi-town-biker

I’d like to share what we’ve learned and hope that other small teams will share their wisdom. For example, this year we decided before kickoff that we were going to build the kitbot on steroids. We knew upfront that it wouldn’t be the ideal drive system but that it would be a better than average drive regardless of the game and save us time. It’s worked well and I think we’ll do it again next year.

I'll have to stop you right here. A well executed Kitbot on Steroids is better than 50% of drive systems you will see this year. That's the beauty of it!

Right after kickoff we take a different approach to analyzing the game because we are a small team. It’s not practical for us to design and build the perfect robot. Instead, we focus on what we can build that would make an ideal second or third alliance pick. This year we built a feeder/defensive bot. But primarily we focused on three bot balancing. Our robot’s COG is purposefully set far to the right and has a set of wheels that ride on top of the 2x2 bridge rail. This lets us hang 60% of the robot off the side of the bridge leaving enough room for two long robots to balance with us.

Few teams have the wisdom to recognize their own limitations and build a robot that meets them. It sounds like you guys did just that, which is remarkable for a team of any size and experience set.

I’m not complaining or suggesting FIRST change any rules. We’re interested in the experiences of other small teams and any tips or advice they can pass on. When you reply, please mention how many students are on your team.

2791 is not as small as your team, but we have similar constraints. We have found that playing smart goes a long way to make up for lack of manpower. It is much easier to build a simple robot that plays a single part of the game very well than it is to build a complex multitasker. A minimalist and simple robot has many, many advantages in terms of time - less to test, somewhat easy to make weight (we have not been overweight since our rookie year, with no formal weight budgeting or planning whatsoever!), easier to find a niche...

The key is to analyze the game, pick a part of the game that is both strategically valuable and something achievable for your team, and then go for it. It sounds like this year, you picked the bridge as your primary task and ball movement as your secondary task. In my opinion, you're right on the money. If you're good enough at that, at many regionals I wouldn't expect you guys to be available in the second round.