Tall or Short robot

[JustinNguyen]

What are the pros and cons for each?

[SteveDeonarine0]

One of my member who goes by the name cody says that a tall robot is hetter because you can do more with it

[cait.schroeder]

Short robot is able to go under the low bar but seems to be the choice that I would not go with, you have limited room to have all of your electronics, drive train and whatever you are using to achieve missions.

[Canon reeves]

It depends on your strategy and capabilities as a team. The only real advantage of the short robot is the ability to go under the low bar, but that's also a guaranteed defense, and can easily crossed by a kitbot with a simple intake. If you want to cross defenses and do other things, it could be better to do a tall robot, as long as you can easily cross two defenses of any category, you can always cross. Design your robot around your strategy and objectives, there is no clear answer for which is best.

[Meowzaz]

But a tall robot may have a high center of gravity, which means when it goes over the rough terrain or rock wall defenses it can tip over. For this game it seems the best to make a short robot with a lowered drive train so there is more clearance and a lesser chance of being high centered on a defense.

[Dumper FTW 435]

Originally Posted by SteveDeonarine0

One of my member who goes by the name cody says that a tall robot is hetter because you can do more with it

I disagree with this assumption. Most of the time, you can do just as much with a shorter robot as you can with a taller robot. It is however, a greater design challenge. It means you need to optimize the space used on your robot. I highly recommend you design your robot to as small as you can, while still meeting all the abilities you have deemed important. Sometimes this means a tall robot, but often you'll find that you can get away with a shorter one.

Originally Posted by Meowzaz

But a tall robot may have a high center of gravity, which means when it goes over the rough terrain or rock wall defenses it can tip over. For this game it seems the best to make a short robot with a lowered drive train so there is more clearance and a lesser chance of being high centered on a defense.

This is extremely important. Year after year I see robots struggle because their center of gravity is far too high. 2012 is the game that sticks out most to me. There were a lot of top heavy robots tipping over, while the smaller robots performed far better. Whenever your dealing with rugged terrain or driving over obstructions, I HIGHLY recommend you go with a low center of gravity.

So in summary, try to get a low center of gravity and a smaller robot. Although a large robot is sometimes inevitable, it rarely is. The only thing that may require a large robot this year is shooting for the high goal, and even then I'm sure there are ways to get away with a small robot. Our 2012 robot was quite small and was still able to score on those high goals.

EDIT:
I should specify that when I'm promoting a small robot, I don't necessarily mean a robot small enough to fit under the low bar. That is a serious high restriction that will make design very difficult. However, as I've stated, a small size has other advantages.

[Zach101]

Off topic but am I the only one that is confused why the guy who made this thread got negative reputation?

[RaptorRobot1711]

I feel the advantages of being short and being able to go under the low bar aren't as great as the advantages of being a regular sized and or tall robot. Being too short will make it harder to traverse the outer works and will make it hard to make a mechanism for scaling the tower.

[Demonic_]

Originally Posted by JustinNguyen

What are the pros and cons for each?

The design of your robot is mostly up to your team, but there are restrictions on how tall your robot can be before each match as always. My personal idea is to have a relatively short robot to start off, and then extends upward or lowers based on what obstacles are in the way, much like a vintage lowrider.

[mrnoble]

Originally Posted by JustinNguyen

What are the pros and cons for each?

This is the question I am most deeply considering about this game currently. Unlike RR last year, I don't think there is only one clear way to build a great bot. There are two I see in the top, one is tall and the other is short, and there are a variety of other successful niche design options as well. Good question. It earns + rep.

[philso]

Originally Posted by SteveDeonarine0

One of my member who goes by the name cody says that a tall robot is hetter because you can do more with it

Originally Posted by cait.schroeder

Short robot is able to go under the low bar but seems to be the choice that I would not go with, you have limited room to have all of your electronics, drive train and whatever you are using to achieve missions.

Have a look at this one from 2012. It had more functionality than most tall robots even though it is about 12 inches tall. The limitations are really your imagination, your persistence, your willingness to fail and your willingness to learn from your failures and the failures of others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQcp6g-BBYQ

Originally Posted by Dumper FTW 435

I disagree with this assumption. Most of the time, you can do just as much with a shorter robot as you can with a taller robot. It is however, a greater design challenge. It means you need to optimize the space used on your robot. I highly recommend you design your robot to as small as you can, while still meeting all the abilities you have deemed important. Sometimes this means a tall robot, but often you'll find that you can get away with a shorter one.

Originally Posted by Demonic_

The design of your robot is mostly up to your team, but there are restrictions on how tall your robot can be before each match as always. My personal idea is to have a relatively short robot to start off, and then extends upward or lowers based on what obstacles are in the way, much like a vintage lowrider.

It seems that every year, the FRC GDC (and Scott Evans, the Game Designer for FLL) develops games where there are strong advantages for robots that are x and strong advantages for robots that are not x, forcing you to make intelligent trade-offs; with x = tall, wide, fast, etc. The world of Engineering is full of trade-offs and this is an Engineering competition.