[tr6scott]

I didn't vote, as we did not win a regional this year. Last year we did not build a practice bot, last year we won two regionals. This year and for the first time ever, we built a practice bot. We were able to, due to great sponsorship support this year. Last year we were a team of 15, that graduated 9 seniors. This year we were a team of 28 with 5 returning members. Last year we stayed on schedule, had a simple design, had two weeks of driver training and a working autonomous before bag day. This year, we finished the robot, just in time to give the drivers about 4 hours of practice time before bagging, and an untested autonomous. Last year we competed week one, and was the best bot at Kettering. (Jim Zondag's words, not mine). This year we were not. (my words). This is our stats this year from Ed Law's scouting data.


Kettering Regional 1 CCWM [-0.1,-0.9,16] OPR[7.7,7.6,11]
Livonia Regional 2 [1.6, 7.1, 9] [17.8,21.7, 6]
Mich States Regional 3 [3.5,15.6,2] [26.6,28.0,6]

So last year's team probably wouldn't have benefited from building a 2nd bot. Last year, we spent our time refining minibots during the competition season. This year we had a huge return on the investment of building a 2nd bot. So the rate of return in building the 2nd bot, really seems to be determined by where you are on bag day. If you are the best bot out of 40 week 1, why spend the money, you can prototype tweaks and use your out of bag time to improve systems that need it. If your are the other 39 bots competing week 1, you have more opportunity for the investment to pay off.

If we have the money next year, we will build a practice bot. It is a rare event when you get to be the best bot on week 1, and even though we will strive for that again, the odds are not in our favor.

We spent around $4,200 for the practice bot, $1,500 of that was a cRio and the Andymark 2nd bot electronics kit, both will be reused for next year. The second bot is also more expensive, because of purchasing any KOP parts you need too.