Absolutely amazing. Every personal thought I had for many bots....& all in one tethered beauty.
I am not in any way being critical (please understand this).....I actually wanted to build (fabricate onsite at a regional by many teams), a pr. of shared clamp on 3 RC retrievers just like your flop bot pc. only (about 5 lbs. each), to attach to any robot that can simply only drive forward into the auto zone. End result the same (only many teams contributing COTS parts, building them together on Thursday morning, on a single design at the event only to stay within the rules, having each participating bot weighed w/ the fabricated part, then adding by movable clamps the shared community part as needed, where needed). Looks like the only way to even the score now is to follow through and work that plan.
A real tricky question though....As I understand it based on the ruleset, your entire 3 robots ~all 3 alliance team's bots (& all 3 pcs in 148's robot case, that are all tethered together, plus the other 2 full bots), must be in the Auto Zone at the end of the auto period in order to qualify for the actual robot set points. How can you accomplish this?....Or can you already, & you just did not show it in the video? (Remember, that auto zone is a volume, I see the part parked and tethered at the HP Tote Chute (yes, tote chute...LOL), station as being out of that zone). Am I parsing the rule too much? Or have you already asked a Q&A I have yet to see? Wouldn't your entire ROBOT have to be contained in the auto zone to receive those robot set points?
Or, are you just going to forgo the minor robot set points, in exchange for a great Stacked Tote set and the RC set? Among the other absolutely amazing Team 148 robot capabillities?
(Scared now that I asked that set of questions with nearly 48 Hours left...They still have time to work on that before bagging that beautiful 3 pc. beast).
I can certainly see Team 1678's 4 shelf RC snatcher, and Team 148's Batman, Robin & The Gotham Bridge RC Flop Bot, and just 1 more really fast Tote collector & stacker (I also heard news this weekend, and saw something about an amazing Israeli robot without a drivetrain that stacks & delivers tote stacks very fast from working nothing but the Landfill zone, among other super fast stackers), and have imagined them taking home pretty blue World Champs Banners already.
Great job Team 148! I knew we would see some really great "Out Of The Box" and into the tethered bot arena ideas this year. To get all that under 120 Lbs and in the transport config. is amazing! Be proud, show it LOUD! (If those tethers get chopped are you "leaving parts on the field?"
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Now you are forcing me to actually re-submit (and work a lot harder to get the idea accepted somehow and actually done), to others my original idea of community built clamp on RC winch additions fabricated at a regional (since we will both be at the LV Regional and will compete with, and against 148 often)....At least for that RC snatcher next to the golden totes takes care of 2 things at once ~ Cans out of the way and in the zone, and Yellow Totes clear to stack & deliver. It would be the only way many others could possibly compete against your amazing 2015 bot in Auto!
Staying out of the way is easy if (You Are Lucky Enough To Be), on an alliance with them...You work only the landfill to scoring platform areas. You will win with them very often if you do...As long as you stay away from their tethers...no E-Stop is necessary whatsoever.
We will certainly look forward to competing with you...And no doubt fear competing against you....But, will work toward attempting to improve to defeat the amazing early results of 148's hard work and super brilliant design and congratulate your teams' reaching for perfection in 2015 in Recycle rush!
Now, please tell the secret to getting others to accept such an outlandishly & absolutely positively fantastic great Design Idea Set...Please Pray Tell? WOW.
It is shaping up to be a great FRC year! Thank you GDC.