Quote:
Originally Posted by davidthefat
With that in mind, that is one reason for having such ambitious goals this year: Not to be ordinary. "Innovate not imitate" is one phrase that really stuck with me from the whole FIRST experience; I am taking that to heart.
|
Your simple robots didn't do well because they broke, you said it in your post. So obviously they weren't simple and robust enough. To be completely blunt, if your simple robot wasn't successful enough, what makes you think a complex robot will be
more robust and successful? Because you'll get a trophy for a gimmick?
Innovating for the sake of innovating, reinventing the wheel is probably the second biggest pitfall you can fall into when designing an FRC robot, if the wheel is already a very optimized, good solution.
During the initial brainstorming, say anything you think of. Don't limit yourself at the VERY beginning, but be practical. Make sure it is something you can do.
---
By far the biggest pitfall I've seen is doing more than a team is capable of. It takes far less than you think to be competitive in an FRC game, especially considering the alliance structure, but you have to do that task well. It doesn't even matter if it's the RIGHT task; if you do it well you'll be successful. If your team was a turreted shooter in 2009, or your team tried to hang before you finished your ball possession, you probably know what I'm talking about. For 2791 this year, we're going to figure out the best successful strategy that involved our robot doing as little as possible, and we're going to perfect that.
There is always a way to score a number of points relatively easily that is simpler than perhaps the most obvious method. In 2009, anyone who dumped beat 75% of shooters. In 2010, shockingly few teams were adept at scoring from the front zone, which was literally just pushing a soccer ball up a ramp. Sure it's "easy", but what if your robot was like 910, 971, 359, or many of the other great front robots this year? They took the "easy" objective and dominated it.
--------
The other big catch I see is not focusing on the right parts of the game. How many people designed their robots to "kick and hang" this year? When you really look at the problem, you learn that before you can kick, you need ball control. In order to score a lot of points, you'll probably need to change zones. When you identify the problem, make sure you identify the WHOLE problem.