Most Effective Scoring Design?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Nick Lawrence.

Hands down they key to many robots is their driver. If you build a system that may not be as fast as another in THEORY but have a skilled driver you can easily make up the difference.

Nick Lawrence also drove for 1503 in 2010.



A good driver can't fix everything... (And I know 1503 agrees!)

[Nick Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Nick Lawrence also drove for 1503 in 2010.

<removed photo of robot that never existed>

A good driver can't fix everything... (And I know 1503 agrees!)

You can't rely on your drive team to bring all the magic to the field. You gotta have a fair bit in the robot too!

-Nick

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Nick Lawrence also drove for 1503 in 2010.

A good driver can't fix everything... (And I know 1503 agrees!)

I agree a good driver can't fix everything but neither can a good design. a 14 jointed arm may be the optimal way of scoring a game piece but if your driver can't use it you aren't going to be doing well.

In general I would claim that no one part of the system is best. I would claim that the most effective scoring system is the one which your team is adequately able to design, manufacture, iterate, program, and drive. I'm just saying that you have to evaluate things as a system rather than as a single item inside that system.

[Nick Lawrence]

Also, in the above photo that does not exist, what is that one judge in the background doing?

-Nick

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

Also, in the above photo that does not exist, what is that one judge in the background doing?

-Nick

Laughing at you trying to drive on two bent wheels.



But on the topic of driver vs. machine, I think there are designs that lend themselves to easier driver control.

Driver skill was most important in the midfield play where you had to switch between offense and defense while grabbing useful tubes from the clusterf*** (pardon my french) of robots, tubes and inane boundaries. Arm and elevator alike faced similar problems.

Machine was most important in actually scoring. A long arm like 694's (I think we were dangerously close to or actually out of the perimeter dimensions of 84") was unwieldy, wobbly and hard to hang with. Elevators had the advantage of being able to line up parallel to the axes of the field, especially with swerve or Swiss drive. See 177's auton. The robot lined up its tube horizontally and vertically and smashed themselves face first into the rack. And hung tubes like that. And it didn't take a good driver at all.

Ergo, elevators always win. (It's a point of personal contention; I pushed elevators early on, and I got shut down by the arm camp)

[AlecMataloni]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Bait

Ergo, elevators always win.

Not necessarily. 987's iteration of a long scoring arm bested many elevators. There's definitely a reason why they were the first pick at IRI.

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by AlecMataloni

Not necessarily. 987's iteration of a long scoring arm bested many elevators. There's definitely a reason why they were the first pick at IRI.

I don't think I ever saw 987 in action, but yeah, okay, there were long, fixed-length arms that were driven well. However, I'm sure it wasn't easy at all to practice up to that skill level. An elevator still has the advantage of being easy from the get-go, because lining up with the pegs is so straightforward. You are always at the same distance from the rack, no matter what height you're trying to get. (That's another advantage of telescoping designs in general; you can always be in the "safe" scoring zone. Sometimes, your arm pushes you out into the "get pushed around" zone.)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Ninja_Bait

I don't think I ever saw 987 in action, but yeah, okay, there were long, fixed-length arms that were driven well. However, I'm sure it wasn't easy at all to practice up to that skill level. An elevator still has the advantage of being easy from the get-go, because lining up with the pegs is so straightforward. You are always at the same distance from the rack, no matter what height you're trying to get. (That's another advantage of telescoping designs in general; you can always be in the "safe" scoring zone. Sometimes, your arm pushes you out into the "get pushed around" zone.)

The advantage was for the top row, you didn't have to turn around. It allowed a forward-back motion without ever having to turn around. They were a great complement to an elevator who would stay and maneuver int he zone scoring, while the over the top arm would go far for tubes.