[burkey_turkey]

an interesting point one of our alum/mentor/college students brought up is that in a first game, when you are going for speed, you are also going for acceleration. the field is pretty tiny, and considering the rack is in the very middle, your robot does not have much space to get up to speed if its super fast. building a light robot that can accelerate quickly, even if it has a slower top speed, can make the difference and get you there first. our robot this year looks like it is going to be 20 pounds or so underweight, so we are debating whether to leave it underweight and acclerate quickly (the get there faster option) or add a pnumatic braking system like our last years robot (the stay there longer option). there are clear advantages to both, so its a hard choice to make. i think everyone can agree that speed is key for the scoring bots though.

i kind of have a question to ask too, if noone minds. In this years game, assuming each alliance has two good scorers and one bot thats more defense/ramp, will the rack be able to fill up copmletely before the end of the game? do you think that the rack could theoretically be full with 30-45 seconds left and then its just alot of mooving spoilers around? if this is the case then the strategy changes, because now it the key is keeping your ringers not scoring more, which means you need torque and the ability to push. just something to think about....