Great thread so far. Given finite resources, how best to allocate them?
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Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure
As it turns out, "you should have just built the AM14U chassis" actually meets the criteria for an acceptable criticism here in this thread! But just barely.
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Not just barely - you say it yourself...
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Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure
Here's the rolling chassis in week 3 of the build season:
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Kitbot: Day 1
Kiwi: Week 3
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Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure
Last year we had a workable drivetrain, an anemic frisbee shooter, and a sad floor pickup. This year we had a workable drivetrain, a mediocre ball pickup, and an often-broken ball shooter.
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Frisbee shooters, floor pickups, ball pickups, and ball shooters don't come in the KoP. A "workable" (or better) drivetrain does come in the KoP. So where best to allocate resources? Into trying to replace/improve a system that already works, or into a system that doesn't exist and has less prior art to draw from? Rule to thumb is to sink resources into endeavors that provide the greatest gain for the smallest effort. Plenty of teams winning events with the kitbot. Plenty more who build custom drivetrains that are worse than the kitbot.
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Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure
Although we made those incremental improvements, we still didn't prototype nearly enough (I don't know where we would have found the time!) <snip>
I believe the single biggest reason for our poor performance was lack of practice. Our total practice time measured in the single-digit hours.
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See above: Day 1 to Week 3. You just got half the build season back. I would guess that building the kiwi probably costs at least as much as buying another kitbot. Use those funds to buy another kitbot - boom, instant practice robot/drivetrain mule for your drivers to use starting week 1, while other subsystems can use the "real" kitbot for systems integration.