Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.

[Kevin Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Sam_Mills

There was no indication on the information visible in the post that he(she?) had been a part of 1678. I am very aware of how highly they perform, so I am actually pretty surprised that he/she would simplify friction pins as "yes, you can drive out of them."

When you consider that they play on the same field as 254 and 971, this comment is even more surprising, because if it was as easy as driving out of them, then 254 would not bother with their extensive testing of bumper materials, and 971(unless it is for envelope reasons) would not bother with an octagonal drivetrain. At some level you must know you cant just drive out of them either, as you too are updating your 2014 robot with a different bumper shape.

In the bulk of situations, the premise is wrong, regardless of who says it or what team they are from.

Edit: Although I will admit, my comment was unnecessarily rude. I am sure I am not the only one who gets tired of misinformation on CD.

With our new bumpers we can literally just drive straight out of a t-bone. No special maneuvers necessary. We did extensive tests using 971's practice bot, which is t-bone machine (Austin used that robot to t-bone our robot with the old bumpers until the batteries died), and we were able to escape t-bones in under 5 seconds every time.