Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
We were just having this discussion--what made the difference for 1678 this year. We joked about how bad our catapult was this year, but we agreed the fact that we may have had fastest West Coast drive was a big difference maker for us on the the robot. (There were many non-robot factors that were just as important.)
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I wasn't disagreeing with the fact that better drivetrain will be better for the competition. What I was disagreeing with is giving advice to rookie team to build a better drivetrain. For all around rookie team learning curve is tremendous and I do not see how drivetrain can be anywhere near the top of the importance list.
Keep in mind, I started this post as a FRC required feedback from rookie team that receive FRC sponsorship. So the feedback is primarily for rookie teams to learn from our experience and may be it will help them to focus better on important stuff first.
In conclusion, I just wanted to say that, some advices "have to do" and others are "would be nice to do". Also, some advices will change depending on various factors (i.e. size of the team, students and mentors skillset, budget, access to manufacturing facilities etc).
Honestly I do not see any realistic way for us to be able to build a different drivetrain in our rookie year. Considering we were small team (9 kids), one of only active 2 rookie teams, no local veteran teams to get support from, very low budget, no access to decent shop - working in a chem lab with only couple drills, mitre saw and drill press.
So, I suppose, what I was writing is the information that would greatly benefit our own team if we knew it in December.