Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepWater
Really? Teams that designed to be able to drive over the bumps never thought that they might also drive over a ball? Really? I thought most teams would have considered that early on during the design process. We sure did. That was one of the factors that steered us away from going over the bumps from the beginning. That and the higher likelihood of getting flipped over. We DESIGNED to minimize the likelihood of penalties from the beginning rather than leaving it as an after thought for the drivers to deal with on the field.
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Teams should have considered it early on, but for some it was an afterthought. It'd be great if every team had time to test things, but some are lucky if it's driving by the time it goes into the crate. Being a week 1 event, it wasn't surprising to see so many ball incursion penalties.
We were using Lexan plates near our wheels with surgical tubing tied across to keep the balls out, but this still allowed balls to come in from the side on occasion when we translated sideways. We remedied this by taking a long thin strip of Lexan and creating a parabola-shape on the bottom of our frame.
Even some of the most well-designed robots in San Diego would get a ball up under them every now and then, which would decide the match. I'm in favor of the change and can't wait to see some of the new high scores this week.