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Re: Value of a Gear Ground Pickup
We're not investing in one for simplicity's sake, but I expect them to be valuable both for helping allies with preload gears (2 gear autons!) and with drops. While I still can't envision teams often dropping gears that are inside their gear funnels, some teams will--at least initially--struggle with loading station lineup. Even if it doesn't happen in many matches, an opponent dropping a gear at their loading station is a massive gift that most alliances won't be able to take advantage of. We'll also see some fumbles at the airship even from passive lifts, for instance with drivers pulling away too soon or gears slowly falling off springs and not landing back in the funnel.
Point being, as some passive frisbee loaders demonstrated in 2013, FRC matches ensure sufficient failure modes even for electromechanically simple mechanisms. It's hard to predict how common they'll be at your particular qual matches, but they're highly valuable to pickups when they do. Good luck to you!
EDIT: Ground pickups and their allies (or whoever) may also be able to force fumbles at the airship, hitting robots while they're around the peg to release or have their pilot lift. I still envision these as being difficult to pick up and steal given the sight lines, but I guess could camera work and field traffic strategy may be able to negate that. The ceiling for useful complementary technologies to a gear floor pickup is quite high.
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Last edited by Siri : 26-01-2017 at 08:26.
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