[MCC] Minimum Competitive Concept 2012

[BrendanB]

Team 61 comes to mind this year when it comes to an extremely basic yet effective robot. Pretty much it was a tank drive robot with a low goal dumper and a good bridge mechanism. While I don't have the scouting data for each match we did play with them once at GSR and then again this past weekend at Battlecry. In auton they would drive forward and dump their two into the low goal (8pts). They actually preferred not to score in teleop because they viewed their 1points shots better served doing defense/feeding over the bump then focusing on a double balance or co-op. Overall they were extremely successful and in our match with them at GSR between our two autonomous modes we pretty much had the match won once they hopped up onto the bridge in the first few seconds (51pts when the round ended!). They finished GSR with a record of 7-3!

My minimum competitive concept is very similar. It would essentially be a basic 4wd wide robot with a dumper, basic off the floor pickup, human fed (elevator from the pickup goes straight up to a roller that can also be loaded from a slanted hopper), and a bridge mechanism.

Basic strategy would be to drive to the fender and dump the two balls in auto (8pts) or A-bomb to another robot, knock the balls of the co-op & alliance bridge once teleop begins, cross the bridge, play defense, pickup balls from the floor to return over the bump, load balls from inbounder and return over the bump, and then balance on the co-op or double balance with an alliance member (20pts).

Overall you are only scoring 8pts-20pts a match but you offer so much to an alliance in eliminations between a triple balance, feeding, and autonomous.

EDIT: As to dumping vs shooting in auto they are both challenging. Shooting from the key would require a shooter of some sort which would need to take into account ball in consistency as well as accuracy. Dumping on the other hand entails a smaller mechanical challenge with a programming challenge. Assuming your robot drives relatively straight it wouldn't be too hard to make a program that drives straight to the fender before dumping the two balls. Or you utilize the kinect and let your human player practice lining it up.