Quote:
Originally Posted by Squillo
I think this is mixing apples and oranges. You go from "nothing a rookie can contribute" to talking about the difficulty of making "full stacks" - implying that if a team can't make a full (I assume that by this you mean a 6-high) stack, they can't do anything. Consider our robot - we can make stacks up to 4 (though 3 is our sweet spot), cap a stack of up to 4, help with coopertition, move our bot, a tote and a can in auto (or do less if desired). We don't even have a MechE mentor, and we just started learning CAD this year. We have no sponsors who provide parts, machining, or shop space. Even if "putting together a full stack" were more than we could do (and I'm not conceding that, but it may very well have been true had we tried to do that), I do tjink we'll "contribute" to our alliances. We actually found it easier to build what we think will be a solid competitor (no, not a superstar), without having to worry AS MUCH about being beat to a pulp by the other robots, strict perimeter rules during competition, etc.
I like this game. I wouldn't say it's my favorite, or least favorite, but I just don't see why everyone hates it so much. Admittedly it would be more fun to watch if more robots actually did stuff, but I'm thinking that will improve over the next 6 weeks.
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I didn't say I hated the game I said it's hard, perhaps impossible, for teams who don't have excellent engineering and manufacturing (and programming) skills to be able to build a high scoring robot.
The major scoring this year comes from lifting recycling containers onto the top of stacks. Yes, totes are worth 2 points each, but if you can build a stack 6 totes high and then put a container on top, that container is worth 24 points and there's no path to advancement in this game that doesn't involve lifting those containers up very high.
There's no question that's an engineering and manufacturing challenge that relatively few teams can achieve.