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Originally Posted by Karthik
- With the Banebot difficulties, teams had to spend more time on their drivetrains, especially at their initial event. (Installing new carrier plates)
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The carrier plate issue is the gift that keeps on giving; all these pictures on CD combined with what I've seen at two regionals just makes me skittish about using them on drive. (However, I do give props to the BaneBots gearboxes for making it easier than years past to go omnidirectional. If someone were to bring to market a reliable one-CIM gearbox with a gear reduction similar to the BaneBots, I think they'd make a buck or two next season.)
One other thing that might factor into the equation: the rack itself. It is, arguably, the most complex structure FIRST has ever put on the carpet. More importantly, it's a pain in the butt to really replicate short of building the whole thing. (I've noodled a bit with 1293's three-spider-leg mockup, and I've noodled a bit with the field-spec practice rack at Chesapeake. You can feel a difference.) Many teams with limited budgets or manpower didn't build a full rack; I don't know of one within an hour of Columbia. If you don't know how the rack will react, you can't be fully prepared for the rack--and I'm thinking this element might have caught some arm teams by surprise.
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Originally Posted by Cody Carey
Who has the right to say that another team tried to do too much? It really isn't any of our business. What they decided to build their robot to do is their choice... and unless somebody else payed their registration fee, their choice alone.
We can't do anything to improve the overall quality of robots, at least not like this. That is up to each and every team that chooses to compete. The way to improve the quality would be to provide guides, and to help the teams who came up with not-so-quality robots.
Instead of saying "Teams are building pieces of junk, they need to do better.", we should be encouraging people. If we want to effect the target group of teams, we shouldn't talk about them in a thread which details how crappy their robots are.We should be making whitepapers on effective robot design; telling them what some effective strategies for our teams have been. Each team is different, and what works for us may not work for the next guy.
All I'm saying is that we are all going about this wrong. We shouldn't be talking as if we are better than the teams in question. While some of us may be able to build a higher quality of robot, the teams that need help will not listen if it is put across this way.
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I don't think anybody's trying to hand out bottles of Haterade around here--they're simply trying to get a better appreciation for why the quality, real or perceived, of robots this season is off compared to past seasons. If we start noticing a trend, perhaps we can then work to address the ones that are clobbering a lot of teams.