Examples of when it is not advantageous to be lightweight

[nathannfm]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

One of the first things many mentors I have learned from tend to tell me is how to lighten a robot and that "lighter is better" (not always true, but it's a point that has been stressed enough to me in my education that I started this thread because of it

I think this is always true of subsystems, including the drive, until you start to sacrifice structural integrity, but not true for the robot as a whole. When I say "lighter is better" it is usually because if it's not stressed you get to week 5 with a 150lb robot and a major sub system has to be removed because there is no time to redesign all of them to be lighter. On MOE we always have 120.00lb robots because we usually shoot for maximum functionality (do all the things!) and this usually requires more weight than a robot specialized to do a specific task. We embrace this so much that if we get to week 4 or 5 and realize we have 4lb to spare we try to think of a way to use that 4lb to make our job easier, more reliable, or faster.