Poll on winning teams using practice bots

[BJC]

We built a basically identical un-painted robot this year as a practice robot.

This year we used the practice robot to:

-Practice match driving (2:30 runs)
-practice specific manuvers including double and triple balancing, jumping over the bump and downfielding balls, and of course aiming and shooting under heavy defense.
-improved targeting and shooting software
-developed both a center and side bridge auto that shot 4 balls.

We also make every change we ever plan on making to the comp. robot to the practice robot first to see how quickly we can do it, any problems that may arise, and if we actually like the changes we are thinking about making.

These are those changes from this year that I can remember off the top of my head:
-improved internal ball guides into the throat.
-sped up external collector.
-Changed front drive wheels for better turning proformance (twice)
-Changed gearing from a AM 1:4 to the 1:2.54 and modified final chain reduction from 24:12 to 22:12
-moved battery mount to front of robot to move CoG forward.
-Took antibackdrive pins out of window motor (for turret)
-Made many fang profiles (for getting over the bump)
-Shimmed out our bumpers 1/2 of an inch in the front to accomadate new fang profile.
-Moved our hood articulator to accomodate starting the turret backwards for auto.
-Moved a pot for the collector/bridge manipulator that was giving us trouble to a better location.
-put a ball sensor in the throat of the robot to sense balls immediatly when they went into the robot.
-many others.

It is also worth noting that a simulated field (or actual field) is very important to getting solid practice out of a second robot. Most of the powerhouse teams that build practice robots also have full fields to practice on.

Regards, Bryan