FRC 2012 "Best Designs" Log

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I agree that 1717 takes this category hands down.

Funny how that's coming from the team who won an award or two for Emperor Swerve....

[MichaelBick]

1717 since last year has had a swerve better in programming and mechanically that 16. When it became independent this year, along with 2 speeds, it completely blew everything else out of the water. By maybe adding in some modes like 16, it could really become that drivetrain that we have all been dreaming about.

[AlecMataloni]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

1717 since last year has had a swerve better in programming and mechanically that 16. When it became independent this year, along with 2 speeds, it completely blew everything else out of the water. By maybe adding in some modes like 16, it could really become that drivetrain that we have all been dreaming about.

That's debatable. Bomb Squad's swerve looked better this year than any I've ever seen.

[MichaelBick]

It is definitely debateable, but 1717's swerve this year was at least as good as 16.

[Marc S.]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

It is definitely debateable, but 1717's swerve this year was at least as good as 16.

I thinks this is hard to tell. 16 had much larger wheels than 1717 (and us) so they could traverse the bump without a separate mechanism. This I think gave them an advantage because the driver never had to wait for the co-driver or double check that the mechanism was down, which robbed us at least a lot of time. Although when I did see 1717 a champs they rarely slowed down before crossing the bump.

[KrazyCarl92]

We've all heard of the match where 1717 shoots 19 for 20 in the central valley finals. Let's think about this; how many robots are even capable of collecting that many balls over a 2 minute period, much less, collecting and shooting that many balls in a 2 minute period? I'd be willing to bet that it is one of the handful of robots in FIRST history that has a drive train capable of that. I know there are other factors in that kind of performance, like firing rate, collection ease, defense, and a little bit of luck, but that drive train is unparalleled at what it has been able to do in this game.

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by KrazyCarl92

Let's think about this; how many robots are even capable of collecting that many balls over a 2 minute period?

Three digits: 4 6 9.
They did it to us in the Newton semis, and stole 14 (+/- 1, it's late) balls from our side in one match.

I don't know of any others, though.

[Jibsy]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

So let me just address some things.

I know multiple teams used similar designs this season. The 33/973 turret is just one example. I have a few reasons for doing this the way I did. For starters, I wanted to give people who find this thread later on a reference point to go off of. Giving a robot and a design, I felt, fit that criteria. I also wanted to give as much exposure to multiple robots/teams as possible. 33, 973 and 16 all had designs I wanted to use multiple times. 33 or 973 for the turret, 16 or 973 for the swerve. Because 973 also had an acquisition system I really liked (and thus was already having their design directed to), I thought teams could benefit more from seeing a separate robot with a turret (i.e. 33). I don't mean to cut the credit from teams who had similar designs. It's partially I liked how it could work out by getting more robots exposure (and thus, people who come here later can see more). Maybe having a specific team referenced was a poorly thought out idea, but I think it'll give people coming here for reference a better idea. The point isn't to provide credit to a certain team for a design. It's to put a design out there, and have a team be used as an example. If that makes sense.

P.S. I'll make the appropriate updates to the original post in the morning. From now on, I'll try to update it once a day, or multiple times a day if I feel it's necessary.

I think this could turn into a pretty cool resource, neat idea.

Going off of past experience, I think it would be ideal to have a short list of teams who used each method effectively so that you can look at multiple implementations of the same concepts.
Eg: Over-bumper intake: 2056/2826/469/341/971/256

[mjustice66]

I thought that 118's pincher at the top of their tower was cool. It helped them shot balls quickly and accurately.
http://vimeo.com/37293255

[LeelandS]

So far, I'm loving the discussion that is being bred by this thread (especially the 16 v 1717 for Swerve drive). Here's what I'm thinking I'm going to do:

Several people have mentioned that I should include multiple teams who did the design well. So I think that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to rework the design headers so it's going to be "The (design), as used by team(s) (####...)". I realized (after reading some people's comments), that the way I have it now credits a team with a design, when my original intention was to have a design, and have a team used as an example.

Keep the ideas coming guys! I'm hoping this could become a great resource for people to look back on!
I'm going to update the original post now, based on what people have posted so far. It will probably take some time, so be patient.

[gyroscopeRaptor]

As a balancing aid, you may want to put down bridge brakes (2175 had a good implementation).

And 118's bridge grabber should be put here as well. Future games might allow something similar...

[stundt1]

179's unique design for the bridge

[Mark Sheridan]

I gotta do a shout out to the original stingers of 33 and 148. There was a huge arms race to incorporate these features, yet 33 and 148 still had some of the best stingers by the time worlds came around.

I think we need a separate category for "pneumatic plunger deployment into shooter," like 1114 and 987. I though those ideas were genius, as the ball was always introduced the same way, no matter the position of the shooter.

[Gray Adams]

Originally Posted by stundt1

179's unique design for the bridge

I'm not sure how they ended the season, but I was under the impression that it didn't work out as planned on the competition bridge and wasn't too effective.

I'm not trying to say it's not a really cool idea, but I wouldn't say it was one of the best designs.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Gray Adams

I'm not sure how they ended the season, but I was under the impression that it didn't work out as planned on the competition bridge and wasn't too effective.

I'm not trying to say it's not a really cool idea, but I wouldn't say it was one of the best designs.

This is correct, I was at both of their events and very rarely saw them use that feature of their robot. Furthermore I feel it detracted from their scoring ability.

I would also mention that, while 973 was not the only team with a CD7 intake they were the only team to utilize it in the unique manner they did. They made excellent use of their swerve system to sweep balls up using the ability of that intake to grab any ball it touches. While they didn't invent it they did show how effective it could be.