FRC Blog - 2016 Motor Controllers

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by EricH

I agree with Knufire. WARNING: You just woke up a geezer!

[geezer]Back in my day, we didn't have no stinkin' 775 motors! Didn't have more'n TWO, count 'em, TWO, CIMs! Unlimited motors? HAH! We was lucky ta get more'n two of any one motor! And we didn't have all this selection of controllers either--all we had were Victor 884s! And Spikes! And don't get me started on the gearboxes! You think more restrictions means harder challenge, you're darn right, maybe it's ACTUALLY a challenge now! You young whippersnappers these days...[/geezer]

All right, back to seriousness... You get two drill motors, two CIM motors, two Fischer-Price motors, two Globe motors with attached gearbox, two window motors, and one van door motor. Build a robot that can play Recycle Rush. I can do it with two drills, one CIM, and one van door motor (and a couple of pneumatic cylinders). Won't be very fast, but I'm pretty sure that it'd be a second-rounder for consistency. (Hint: I've done it--2003.) By the way, that's the actual motor list from around '03-04 timeframe--we didn't get the second pair of CIMs until '05 and lost the drill motors to get it. And somehow, everybody showed up with a robot that--at least in general--ran, and most of them actually ran pretty well.

This whole "unlimited high-power motor" thing has been kind of... well, I don't know. It is what it is, but I'm thinking that it was about time for it to end. Maybe we'll get some contact back next year with the power dialed down...

I can appreciate what you're saying-- especially with people who have been around a while, I think adding more challenge is an appealing thing. If I was working with a different team, I might even be of the same opinion.

I realize this may be me being a "youn'in" but loose motor restrictions help lower resource teams build better robots. The robot 2667 built this last year wouldn't have been possible for the team to build before the 6-CIM era-- and the team did not have the technical knowledge to apply a different motor to the same tasks we used a CIM for (drive motors and an elevator).

While I'm currently working with my team to start building up a better knowledge of technical subjects, there are plenty of teams that are in that boat every year (probably mostly rookies and not nearly 7-year veterans, but still). I understand the argument that applying more motor constraints would force these teams to learn more, but people learn at far different paces and teams without major technical mentors have serious difficulties building up a knowledge base for the things that people on Chief Delphi and moderately successful teams take for granted.

Coming from the other end... frankly I don't really care to put limits (that generally seem quite arbitrary and can be worked around) on what teams like 254 and 1114 can do with their robots. I like to see robots that move and do things quickly, and the public generally finds those kids of robots more exciting. More motors (and no power limit) helps make that possible for more teams.