Quote:
Originally Posted by atucker4072
I don't think that having a robot pick up from the front and back will make a huge difference. Turning 180 degrees could be just as fast. In my opinion I would rather have one intake that works really well, rather than have a way to pick up from both sides that is just average.
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Although I agree that turning could be just as fast, and if we find that a back/front pickup is not that effective, we can always opt for a simple forwards pickup. But the goal here is to make a front/back pickup that IS just as good as a one sided one.
The only thing I would worry about with turning, is that if a team was to spin around too fast in one place they may risk losing control of the ball due to centripetal force, and the ball may fly off on a tangent, and then again, maybe that could be a way to pass the ball if the drivers know how to do that. If there's a problem with ball control, obviously the solution is to make a ball holder that eliminates or reduces the risk of the ball falling out.
We like our mechanical arm length switcher idea, because it looks pretty neat so far, and we could possibly win an award for it, but if it proves to be more of a pain in the butt than we expected, and we pass the deadline set for finishing the mechanism prototype, then we move on to a simpler, one sided design. As of now, we find that the design is simple enough to not give us too many hassles.
We've had success building some crazier things in the past, like our 2012 robot "Odin" which could stack another robot on top of it to leave more room for triple balances, or make two robot balances easier by stacking, and using one robot to move and balance while the other sat top . It still could hold up to 3 balls, though usually two, was shorter than the bridge when the top doors were down, and when the top doors were open, we could still shoot fairly well, but we ended up being more of a point guard passing balls to teammates. We did get an award for that design, and the front/back pickup is way less complex than a one foot tall robot that stacks a robot on top, but still has a shooter, ball grabber, bridge manipulator, and bumper holder for the robot on top. If you have no idea what I'm talking, about, Team701TV on YouTube has our build season video on it. Here's a pretty popular video of our first successful unassisted stack in a competition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qPtIfwSN6c
Anyway, my point is that I have the confidence in my team to build this system successfully, because it's definitely not the hardest thing we've ever done. My team is all about taking reasonable risks and making a unique robot, and sometimes that just makes the season more fun, challenging, interesting, and especially more fulfilling than it already is when the students succeed and also receive recognition for it.