Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell
I think alot of the sentiments against Ri3D don't actually come from the last few years of it. I think alot of it comes from 2013 and 2014, where some seriously competitive robots were built (The two Build Blitz robots come to mind).
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My team learned from those years. 2013 taught us what not to do -- we have aimed for simple, durable designs ever since.
2014 gave us Build Blitz Team JVN's over-the-bumper intake and 'choo-choo' catapult. We made small tweaks to those, and built them on a souped-up kit chassis. Because we converged on a design concept early, our build season objectives became (1) drive team practice, and (2) finding the robot's weaknesses. Drive it, break it, fix it, iterate. That robot played 72 matches, including a blue banner and our first trip to CMP. Pretty nice improvement vs. 2013. That trend has continued.
Since then, our team has become more confident about game analysis and setting build/practice priorities. 2016 was a break-out year for the Average Joes, but its seeds were planted in 2014 -- and we thank Build Blitz Team JVN for that.
__________________
Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)