Goal Grabbers

This is an answer mostly for the rookies who are trying to move one goal. It takes about 30 lbs of pull or push to move a goal.
If you build a simple robot using the FP motors you will have trouble moving the goal from a standing start. i.e. if you plan to drive up to the goal, stop, clamp on, pull it back, stop, fill with balls, push back etc. The reason has to do with the torque vs speed curve of the FP motor drive system. If you make the the robot powerful enough to do this it will be so slow, it won't be able to finish in time. If you plan to grab a goal from the side, a two wheel design robot will be able to spin the goal in a circle but
not get to move in a straight line. - The reason we know this is we used a two motor prototype to test the hypothesis.


Instead of a standing start, you might figure out a way to get up a 'head of steam' and hit and push the goal. If say your robot weighs 130 and the goal 180 - you get the robot up to 5mph, slam into the goal and then push it at about 2mph into the scoring region. You then could back up and try for another goal.

As a rookie team - concentrate on how you can help your alliance.
You help your alliance by scoring points. You score points by being able to move, push, pull, possibly lift and drop balls. If you can score more than 10 points, you will help your alliance. If you
can only score ten or less, you won't be much help.

Now as to our tactics for this year ..... We are not ready to say,
other then it involves goal(s?), balls, robots, our allies and our opponents.