[LeelandS]

As a team that had originally planned for the 50pt climb + dump, here is my take on things.

We decided to go for the 50 points because we were basically going to dedicate the entire 6 weeks to the effort. We were confident that we would be able to develop a robot to make it work in 6 weeks. The 50pts would have been a huge swing, especially at our Week 1 regional at Finger Lakes, especially where we only saw two robots climb for 30 all weekend, one who didn't do so until elimination rounds, and one who stopped half way through qualifications after a fall. Of these two, only one could dump.

In a lot of ways, I was the unraveling of this plan. I have a deep issue with one trick robots, largely along the lines of "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Especially when the dropping of this basket breaks all the eggs, the basket, and anything beneath it. Oh, and the basket costs $3500. I pushed to develop a shooter (for the autonomous points, and as a fall-back plan). The extra weight and complexity drew away from the resources for climbing, and we ended up scrapping the climber Week 5, and rapidly developing a 10pt climb in the last week, and purely cycling. Would we have successfully developed the climber if we hadn't gone to shooting? I don't know.

Truth be told, I'm glad we did this. We ended up seeding 5th at the event, captaining the #4 alliance, and winning the event. As a cycler, we were mediocre at best, averaging about 2 cycles in a good match. But the 18pt autonomous (in which we were very consistent), the 10pt climb, and the 24 disc points we earned were more than enough, and we were more consistent then I imagined we would have been climbing for 30, then dropping those 4 discs into the goal. Plus, we weren't put into that precarious position that could have ended our season.

The plus side is, improving our ability to score (i.e. better cycling) raised our point ceiling. After swapping gearboxes at Worlds, we were consistently getting 3 cycles, sometimes 4. Were it not for unrelated consistency issues, we would have been much more effective. Meanwhile, dedicated 50pt climb and dumpers were still scoring 50pts. It doesn't matter how quickly or efficiently the climb and dump is accomplished, as long as it is done.

In the long run, I think it comes down to consistency vs points, factoring in a team's resources. 1114 and 67 were the top climb-and-dumpers this season. Not many teams have their resources. We definitely didn't. If a team had the resources to effectively manufacture that kind of climbing device, more power to them. Many teams don't have those resources, but many teams tried. So we saw many teams of varying consistencies go for those points, with many failed attempts.