To deadweight or not

[Caleb Sykes]

Our robot is nearing completion, and although I am only approximating, I think our final weight will be no greater than 90 pounds. Even if I am off by 10 or 15 pounds, my question still stands: Should we add some deadweight to the robot to get up to 120 pounds?

We will absolutely be be doing our own testing soon to determine what is optimal for us, but I am curious to know what the community's opinions on this issue are. I think that this year will see many more robots that are underweight than in previous years, so I think that this could be a good topic of discussion.

In my opinion, this will be the year where many matches will be decided by pushing contests. Even with the wide open field, I don't see top speeds of greater than 12 fps gaining you anything. In addition, the argument of "we're going to be so fast/maneuverable that we don't need pushing power" does not hold as much weight (haha) this year since few robots will be exclusively offensive. Therefore, I would be very much in support of my team adding weight right up to 119.9 lbs.