How Would You Change Your Robot

[jagen31]

Perhaps a shot into the high goal when positioned up against the low goal. Several strategy options open up given that ability. We saw the shot angle out of Barrage able to consistently put a ball into the high goal not only positioned up against the low goal, but up against another robot against the low goal as well.

Moreover, at Archimedes, I know a lot of us were very impressed when the eighth seed alliance used a strategy we had considered to take them to semis and almost to finals, where one robot would sit at the low goal the entire match and receive inbound passes from a human-player, shooting the ball into the high goal and putting up consistently high (300+ clean points) marks.

Imagine a long sweet-spot shot combined with a reverse-shot from the low goal so long range scores are possible, but if we get engaged in a pushing match, we can back out and pivot straight to the low goal, and score it for the full 40 points instead of settling for 31, plus we wouldn't have to turn to shove the collector into the low goal for the dump. Only problem is we have a tall back flap that gets in the way but we could always reinstall our shorter one.

Its nice to dream... eh? I bet we could add another mechanism with the 5 pounds for IRI... Then again, it would probably have to be made of neoprene or balsa wood to fit within weight constraints

And what else? The sky is the limit. Maybe a dual collector for three ball autonomous? Maybe add a gyro for super cool auto modes? Put the camera back on the robot? Notice those improvements all have to do with the autonomous period. I'm a programmer, what else would I want?

Probably the simplest improvement would be to add one of those driver precision flashlights, because they look sleek and seem useful for alignment. Even then, indicator LEDs that change based on our catapult state machine would be nice. We had those nearly operational earlier in the season!