Robot Weight

[crimsonjake]

Just wondering how many teams will be shooting for the 120 weight limit! With the bridge being as tight as it will be with either 2 or 3 robots, I was thinking that all the robots on the alliance will need to be relatively the same weight.

[Polaris395]

I think it will be pretty safe to assume that everyone is +/- 10 pounds from 110lbs.

[crimsonjake]

That's what I'm hoping. With the point value of 3 robots on the bridge in the elimination rounds it could be a game-changer, but the bridge size may hold a lot of alliances back. Even if all the robots on the alliance are built "the short way," balancing will be hard to coordinate unless they are all weighted the same. I haven't done the calculations as to how much leeway we get, but I'm assuming it is pretty small.

[AlecMataloni]

Where's the "drill enough weight holes so we're barely under 120lbs" option?
;-)

[MrForbes]

We're shooting for making the "upper" part of the robot as light as possible, and we're not concerned about the bottom part. But we'll make sure it's less than 120 on bag day

[Jon Stratis]

It might not be a bad idea for a team to make their robot weight adjustable. Have some way to increase/decrease your weight by ~1 lb increments so you can match your alliance partners. "Our weight is adjustable. Robot A goes in the middle, we'll go opposite robot B and we've already calibrated our weight to 117lbs to match". Say that to a potential alliance before eliminations, and it could sway them to picking you!

[rsegrest]

We're with Squirrel. Low center of gravity is going to be critical when traversing the ramp so as long as our weight is at the bottom of the bot we're happy. Probably going to be close to the 120 but not neccessarily shooting for right at it.

[crimsonjake]

Another thing that could play a factor (a very, very small factor) would be the unequal distribution of weight upon each wheel.

i.e. the front of the robot has more weight on its wheels than the back.

Just to keep in the back of your mind!

[Pjohn1959]

Originally Posted by AlecMataloni

Where's the "drill enough weight holes so we're barely under 120lbs" option?
;-)

Or: "My hacksaw is my best friend..."

[Aren Siekmeier]

We'll build the entire robot as light as possible, then add solid steel to very bottom until we hit 120.

[Phyrxes]

We are going for the holesaw and sawzall it down to 120 but keep the CG as low as possible.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by crimsonjake

Another thing that could play a factor (a very, very small factor) would be the unequal distribution of weight upon each wheel.

i.e. the front of the robot has more weight on its wheels than the back.

We'll definitely do this, we will rearrange where things go to keep the center of mass centered between the front and back. Side to side is not too much of an issue....since we're planning a "wide" robot.

[Taylor]

As we understand this game, it's about speed. We'll keep our robot as light as possible. With a 35x27 frame and 8" wheels, we ought to be able to 'spin' on the bridge and change our orientation to perpendicular to the bridge, allowing our partners to climb up on the ends.

[Flimsor]

We'll be shooting for lower than 120 but you always seem end up at the limit.

[DarkByakko]

Our team is on the fence with this. Assuming the majority of the teams competing are shooting for a weight near or equal to 120 lbs, we're more comfortable trying for a heavier bot due to the inevitable fact that if there are more heavy bots competing, a light bot would be pushed around.

We had this problem in the last competition, wherein our bot was lighter than the others, and the other heavier bots tended to push ours right out of the way.

It's a hard decision to make; sacrifice endurance for speed, or increase the weight for steadier shooting at the cost of a slower robot.