Quote:
Originally Posted by marccenter
CloakAndDagger:
Our goal at the beginning of the season was to qualify for MSC and we felt we could do that with our team resources (mentors, students, time, money) by building a very competitive MCC robot and were not disappointed [Team 1114 presentation makes this point about carefully evaluating your resources]
FRC3548, RoboRavens2, built a MCC robot that successfully became #3 captain at SOuthfield and then selected by #1 captain, 3604, to win the event with our sister team, FRC1188, who also built a MCC robot.
At our second FiM event at Livonia, after a few rounds of alliance captain picking each other, we found ourselves as captain of alliance#8. Our sister team, 1188, chose us as their first pick.
From this perspective I think the students considered our season very successful especially after we qualified for MSC and the World Championship at St. Louis.
One of the major things different this year was how much the KOP chassi had to change in order to be an effective MCC robot (our view). What normally takes us only two weeks to complete took us four weeks this year. Modifications to the KOP chassis included the pneumatic upgrade kit from AM, the AM front wedge plate, VEX Pro 13t CIM gear, 50 tooth trans gear swap, and new belts to go with the VEX 60T belt pulleys. We needed to resize our KOP by reducing it by one inch in order to accommodate the belt and pulleys.
As an experienced coach I know that our 10 student member team will peak at about 500 hours in the six week build period. As such, not having a shooter to reuse "off the shelf" or a climber "off the shelf" made those two items very low on the wish list. We are considering those off season projects at the present time.
One the great things about successfully competing and successfully completing a MCC robot is that the team is not stretched to its absolute limits the whole season long. This allows the coaches, students and mentors to smile and enjoy the entire season a whole lot more. This is an important element in retaining and attracting students, mentors and coaches for the next year.
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I'm not saying under any circumstances that an MCC robot cannot be competitive, but I am saying that we need to push ourselves further than we did this year. We have so many advantages over newer teams, and yet we find ourselves falling short last year and this year.
We get custom punched sheet metal from Russels Technical Products, in any metal we want. We have a warehouse from which we work, upon which we pay no overhead. We have an array of mentors from every field imaginable, and yet...
You guys spent 4 weeks building a competitive robot out of the KOP base. We spent as long trying to get our bases designed. We had the luxury of having 3 bases custom made to our specifications this year, and our arm as well, and instead of using this as the advantage that it was, we leaned on it as a crutch. We had all this free time, and yet, when confronted with regearing a gear box, or progressing beyond our first high goal shooting prototype, our build lead looked me straight in the eye and said it was too much work. As soon as we had preliminary arm designs done, our design team stopped showing up at the building.
We have work to do, and i and several other students plan on implementing it. In that sense, this year helped us identify the many, many shortcomings that we had, but it was still disappointing to say the least, especially knowing how much untapped potential our team has.