Quote:
Originally Posted by lark95
So my question is this. Is there any advantage to spending an extra week or two in the build season to design these complex drives, coding gyros, and building suspension if those few weeks could have been devoted to the drive team practice? I know this year it paid off to go simple. We made it to the finals in Milwaukee.  |
For 90% of teams, more driver practice is more important than adding extra functionality.
That being said, for that other top 10%, crazy suspensions and drive systems can be worth it.
The other thing to consider in both scenarios is what your students are getting out of it. Cool, crazy drivetrains can be fantastic learning experiences for students. And even if they don't work out competitively, they provide lessons for the future.
This year 20 used mecanum for the first time since 2008. We felt it was appropriate for this game, and with smart programming we could get around the need for a suspension, and we hoped to build a flexible enough chassis.
As usual, though, 20 doesn't really do "non-rigid" when it comes to frame design, and some design hiccups in the middle of build season resulted in 20's weird rigid trapezoidal frame: (
https://plus.google.com/108224752813010749343/posts/3qH3xHN5Ghv?pid=6116193614109484338&oid=1082247528 13010749343)
The practice bot strafes and drives perfectly in both autonomous and teleoperated mode, while the competition robot does not. As a result, our practice robot is capable of two stacks/match consistently and a tote stack auto, while our competition robot has yet to show that it can do that.
What this has done was taught the team something. What this
hasn't done was win any blue banners (yet.
)
Was it an off-year for 20? In many respects, yes, but in others, no. We did some really cool things 20 hasn't really done before, and as annoyed as I have been at certain shortcomings of the team this year, in many ways we've stepped up our game.
In summary: Do what's right for your team. (basically the conclusion of every Chief thread these days).