Sustainability - 2014 - COTS parts

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by SenorZ

I think it helps a lot. Instead of seeing just the superbots made by the power teams, new teams and low funding teams can see what everybody else is doing with materials at hand.
The 3 Day Robot might have inspired a lot of clones, but the students doing the building were still inspired! And that's the most important part.

A side question: do the power teams like this too? If there are fewer teams DOA during matches it is easier for the we-need-to-go-undefeated teams to get wins/points.

I wouldn't call us a "power team," but we had a few matches in the offseason that we needed to win to go undefeated. I'd say unless a team were a team with "rookie-ish" resources that ended up building a quite good bot (like 2813), we cared far more about the strength of their drivetrain and drivers than their shooter (which is what Ri3D likely effected the most). Auto shots were basically the only other thing on their robot that was important, even hanging wasn't that important.

If we were with 41xx and 43yy against an alliance with a few good bots, we'd (ideally) want them to make their auto shots, and then go right to preventing the opposing robots from getting from their feeder station to their pyramid. Even then by hanging, these robots could add more to our alliance by shutting down other teams that trying to score. If they tried to cycle, they probably wouldn't score more than a handful of discs and would likely just get in our way.

I don't doubt that Ri3D has made rookies more competitive, I just don't really care about how good their manipulator is (as long as we've got a much better one). If I want to win my next match with two rookie teams, I'd much rather the kitbot get a lot better (like, 4 CIMs in the KOP and a non-floppy frame) than have Ri3D improve their scoring mechanisms.