Ultimate Robot by year

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by Cory

This thread is analogous to saying "I want a Bugatti Veyron, but I want it for $30,000" These robots couldn't possibly exist, at least not in 2013.

Sometimes it's interesting to speculate about what could have been. I think the OP is trying to get some input as to how a "perfect" bot could exist given what we saw during the season. Also some these robots almost did exist. 469 had an almost flawless robot this year, I'm sure if they really wanted they could have redesigned their robot to allow space and weight for a 30 point climber. However I think they'd have to do something similar to your design or 1986's as a ground pick up + corner climber isn't really possible. I also think that 233 had one of the best conceptual designs from the start. It had a ground pick up and telescoping shooter to be a 60" FCS. I think the complexity of what they tried to design somewhat limited their robot's ability this year, if it had been executed as planned though it could have been phenomenal.

In 2012 I'd say 1717 had a perfect robot, I honestly couldn't see any improvement too it other than perhaps adding a 973 style ground pick up, however their swerve drive somewhat nullifies that necessity. Their barrier crossing mechanism was a single small wedge, it really couldn't have been any smaller or lighter and took up almost no space on their robot so it wasn't really a trade-off, there was no reason not to have it.

[Anthony Galea]

Originally Posted by themccannman

469 had an almost flawless robot this year, I'm sure if they really wanted they could have redesigned their robot to allow space and weight for a 30 point climber.

If I am wrong, someone from 469 correct me, but I am pretty sure one of their members told me at the Detroit event they were working on perfecting a 30 point climber, and it was almost completed. I am pretty sure that's why they had that empty space of bumper in the front of their robot, its just they never got it working perfectly, so they didn't bother putting it on.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by themccannman

Sometimes it's interesting to speculate about what could have been. I think the OP is trying to get some input as to how a "perfect" bot could exist given what we saw during the season. Also some these robots almost did exist. 469 had an almost flawless robot this year, I'm sure if they really wanted they could have redesigned their robot to allow space and weight for a 30 point climber. However I think they'd have to do something similar to your design or 1986's as a ground pick up + corner climber isn't really possible. I also think that 233 had one of the best conceptual designs from the start. It had a ground pick up and telescoping shooter to be a 60" FCS. I think the complexity of what they tried to design somewhat limited their robot's ability this year, if it had been executed as planned though it could have been phenomenal.

In 2012 I'd say 1717 had a perfect robot, I honestly couldn't see any improvement too it other than perhaps adding a 973 style ground pick up, however their swerve drive somewhat nullifies that necessity. Their barrier crossing mechanism was a single small wedge, it really couldn't have been any smaller or lighter and took up almost no space on their robot so it wasn't really a trade-off, there was no reason not to have it.

There was one mechanism that you couldn't see on 1717 that they had to cross the barrier. They had a deployable parabolical rail that helped them get over the bump super smoothly. I think what Cory is saying is that even if these robots were possible(which is still very hard to do given the game rules), it would have been illogical to design a robot that could do EVERYTHING in this game because it would have detracted from the rest of the robot. The amount of work to tune, practice, prototype, and design a fast 30pt climb, dump, FCS, cycler, and intake is insane. Even if you had the time to build all those mechanisms in the 54" cylinder, 112" perimter, and weight limit, you would have 100 units of robot performing at 50% instead of 75 units of robot performing at 100%.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

I think what Cory is saying is that even if these robots were possible(which is still very hard to do given the game rules), it would have been illogical to design a robot that could do EVERYTHING in this game because it would have detracted from the rest of the robot.

Not exactly. I see a very common trend on Chief where people just casually talk about adding a 30 point climber, as if it's no big deal. Lots of people mentioned it in the "open build" thread, others mention doing it in season, etc.

I don't think anyone who didn't build a 30 point climber, or attempt to design one realizes how ridiculously hard it is. When you combine it with saying "this team should have the best floor pickup in the world, the best shooter in the world, and 30 point climb in this specific manner, without fundamentally changing their existing robot design", it's a pretty ridiculous statement.

We spent hundreds of hours figuring out to how package everything on our robot. We severely limited our options with our shooter because of the climber. It was the hardest thing we've EVER had to do. By a longshot.

It's nearly impossible to make all these things work together. I'm pretty convinced that it's impossible to retrofit a 30 point climber to a robot without completely redesigning multiple sub systems, such as a shooter and maybe even the base depending on how you climb. Even if you planned to add one later, it's still really hard to do.

Basically, you can say that you think a robot should climb for 30, shoot with 90% accuracy and do a 7 disc auto...and that's as realistic as you can get. When you start pointing out specific design features of those systems on existing robots that you think would be ideal, you've created an impossibly small design space.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

There was one mechanism that you couldn't see on 1717 that they had to cross the barrier. They had a deployable parabolical rail that helped them get over the bump super smoothly. I think what Cory is saying is that even if these robots were possible(which is still very hard to do given the game rules), it would have been illogical to design a robot that could do EVERYTHING in this game because it would have detracted from the rest of the robot. The amount of work to tune, practice, prototype, and design a fast 30pt climb, dump, FCS, cycler, and intake is insane. Even if you had the time to build all those mechanisms in the 54" cylinder, 112" perimter, and weight limit, you would have 100 units of robot performing at 50% instead of 75 units of robot performing at 100%.

That parabolic rail probably also took up almost no space, especially since that space wouldn't be used for anything else if you didn't have it anyways. I'm not sure what they could have possibly added to improve their robot that would be mounted the underside of their drivetrain.

The only dilemma that I see preventing a "prefect" robot from happening is that a corner climber + dump is not compatible with the best ground pick ups, and an internal face climb that is compatible with the best ground pick ups doesn't allow for a dump at the top, if you could figure out a way around either of these problems you could do it.

It seems like the only practical approach to this would be either 67's or 1114's climber base with 33's ground pick up/shooter-turret on top and an added feeder station attachment that would allow for FCSing.