Quote:
Originally Posted by PVCpirate
I'm sorry, when has this ever not been true? In 2013, could a team without excellent engineering, manufacturing and programming skills have built a robot with a 7 disk auto and a 30 point climb? Could a team without those skills have had a 3 ball auto for Aerial Assist? High scoring robots are built by teams that excel in all of these areas, regardless of the game.
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Those are not core functionality to play the game competitively. Stacking reliably is. Case in point, in 2013 I won 2 regionals with a 10 point hang and no floor loader. A robot well within the capabilities of ANYONE with a hack saw and a power drill. In 2014 I won 3 districts with a robot without a 3 ball auto, slightly more complicated robot but with VP still within the range of abilities for dedicated students to build with basic resources, but what's worse, a team that was a decent intake (which anyone with a power drill and hack saw should have been able to build) would have been INCREDIBLY valuable. This year? Drastically harder to achieve basic game objectives. Let's break down what options a low resource team has that aren't stacks on stacks on stacks.
1. RC specialist - Great idea until you realize it's a 9lb object that you need to accurately move to 70"+ in the air while only having 6" of it to grip on to. Oh, and you risk knocking over a stack. Not really viable.
2. Litter specialist - Robots aren't allowed to throw litter so the best you can do is clear it, viable but not anywhere near a solid pick imho.
3. Coop Stacker - Ignoring that if you can do this you can stack bins of at least 4... it almost requires a floor loader (which is kinda hard) and is worthless in eliminations. Though could possibly seed high and pick a stacking team. Likely wouldn't win.
4. RC grabber - Ok, this one works. Sorta. At early events they might have a chance but they are completely reliant on being picked since they effectively can't score any points on their own. Plus by CMP (or DCMP) they will be effectively overshadowed by greater speed and precision of the top tier teams who realize it's too important a role to be left to unreliable partners.
So, I'm not seeing any viable options for lower resource teams to be competitive. I feel the MCC this year is a little sparse on the Minimum part.