[ChrisH]

Last year about this time, people were saying that there was no use for "ball robots". Yet there were some pretty impressive ball robots in the finals at the Championship last year.

Stacking is a more difficult problem mechanically than playing King of the Hill. It will take a fair amount of tweaking to get a stacker working reliably. Just like last year's ball robots

It will also tke practice for drivers to get good at using their stacking machine effectively. Just like last year's ball robots.

It is too early in the season to determine what strategy will work best. My personal opinion is that the alliances in the Finals in Houston will need to have at least one robot capable of putting one bin on another.

Here in Southern California, we had a scrimmage with 40 teams in attendance. From what I understand, not a single robot put one box on another. (I can't say, I only saw three or four matches as I was too busy helping rookies stumble about the field to watch). But many robots had partially completed stacking mechanisms. The key phrase there is "partially completed". Most teams were wisely focusing on getting their drive up and running, not refining their stacker.

I expect that stacking will become a more important skill as time moves on. Just as it will take time for teams to realize (as it does every year) that Qualification Points are more important than winning or losing. I'd rather lose with 100 points than win with 25.

Think about it