Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Schuh
I think your implicit assumption is that being lighter gives you a more maneuverable robot by decreasing acceleration time.
If your goal is to make your robot more maneuverable, then I could see taking weight out of your robot at the cost of raising your CG above an acceptable height resulting in a net decrease in maneuverability. If there is no option to lower CG through re-arranging components, then it may make sense to ballast the robot. It also helps if the CG is closer to the center of the robot for best handling. I think for these reasons contributed to 254 ballasting their robot this year.
There are plenty of matches where teams either outright tipped or had to drive cautiously because they were tippy (you asked for specific matches, I would say watch some of 973's 2013 matches). I bet many of these teams would have added ballast if they had weight.
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Part is maneuverability, though the main reason is I just can't think of a reason to be heavy. 1323's resources make machining for weight easy enough, and I think it would be a useful engineering goal for the kids to shoot for in season to design for a lightweight yet strong robot if the game allows for a lightweight robot as a viable strategy. Also it would be a good way to allocate weight lower into the drivetrain to make a lower CG (which has been a clear problem for us this year).
One of the first things many mentors I have learned from tend to tell me is how to lighten a robot and that "lighter is better" (not always true, but it's a point that has been stressed enough to me in my education that I started this thread because of it, though further learning could prove differently) and while I understand the potential advantages of a lower weight, I cannot think of many reasons for increased weight. More mass in a robot just makes it harder to move, and I don't see any advantages to that, and want to learn what I may be missing.