What is your teams (general) robot design? (2015)

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

In that spirit, here's where we are:

Perplexed.

We are constructing both a 4-wheel skid steer (rear omni) and a mecanum drive. We hope they will both be functional by the weekend, though making a carbon fiber belly pan for each is becoming quite the task. We have tested both types on practice bots and each have their advantages and disadvantages. They are sized precisely the same, so we can install the superstructure on either.

Which leads to the next problem. We have spent more time on strategy and design this year than ever before, which is good, but we still feel like there is a broken strategy that we are missing. We are building a cascade elevator with either two or three "teeth" that can grab under the lip of upright totes. There's also a "tooth" for grabbing and placing RC's on top. We want to design a tool for turning sideways RC's upright, but so far are struggling with that. Primarily, our focus isn't on stacking, but on acquiring and using the RC's from the center. That mechanism is pretty far along and looks like a winner.

Still, we keep wondering if there's going to be some strategy that will look obvious in hindsight that is eluding us. Mechanisms aren't the hard part this year; it's choosing the right one for our strategy, and making sure we've chosen wisely.

Don't worry there is absolutely something missing and its either the game breaker, or I am missing out on GDC laughing at my feeble attempts at cracking this game open.