Quote:
Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes
Your robot could do everything in the game really well? Without sacrificing the ability to do other things even better?
If not, you had to make compromise among competing priorities.
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Our robot certainly did everything it had to do much better than our previous two robots did their things. Our only significant points of compromise had to do with the time and skill constraints, not meeting the challenge itself. The AA robot just had to drive and manipulate the ball. As far as size, we optimized solely on ball manipulation and the essentially square dimensions were easy to build a drive system for. Our biggest failing for AA was in mis-analyzing the game - we had no idea it would be so strong on defense, so we opted for maneuverability over torque. There would have been equal (or perhaps less) challenge putting a 6-wheel shifting drive under the ball handler than the mecanum was.
Perhaps most telling as to the "lack of challenge" in the game mechanics was that a kitbot sporting three 20" plywood walls could be both fair on offense and quite good on defense. If it was geared down a bit from the kit, had a good driver and a taller wall, it could be a defensive nightmare. And it wasn't even waiving any endgame bonus to do this!
And to reference another recent one, yes, there were robots even in AA that sat there and did nothing for two minutes, especially in the first few rounds.