Quote:
Originally Posted by nuclearnerd
Good advice dor many, but Is that really helping the OP? They are asking what it takes to become an Einstein calibre team, and AFAIK, "Einstein calibre" teams get there reliably by building high-scoring robots, full stop. I guarantee 1678, 1114, 254, 148, 118 etc (to name a few) don't plan to fill a niche for someone else's alliance.
That said, it takes a lot of capacity building to get to the point where you're capable of consistently fielding robots that seed high. Unfortunately I can't offer any advice on how - we're not there yet  |
It's all about taking baby steps to get there. In my opinion, one of the biggest accelerators in developing on-field success is, well, on-field success. You could argue that 1678s big break was winning their division in 2013, and you can see how they've gotten much better since then.
Even if you realistically think you can compete at that level, games can still blindside you. Many, many top tier teams tried and failed to build a robot that could do everything in 2013, for example. You'd be surprised how many teams had higher hanging mechanisms that just didn't ever make it on the robot due to time or weight; it was a definite wake-up call.
On another topic, there's been a lot of talk about how, for teams that can't compete at the same level as perennial powerhouses, their best chance at going far at the championship is by building specialized support-role robots. I agree with this, but recognize that this comes with a very big assumption: the goal is to go as far as possible at the championship. Often, this robot won't be quite as successful at the regionals, depending how competitive your region is. If you were in an area where most people were only putting up a partial stack of totes, a can specialist robot wouldn't have nearly as much use as they would in California or Michigan where they would have much better robots to support.