FRC T-bone-ing and Hexagonal drive

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

I don't think you understand my point. 1678 is a team that has the organization and resources to devote effort into properly testing and designing a hexagonal drivetrain.

I don't want this post to leave teams thinking that if they build a hexagonal drivetrain they'll miraculously be better robots when they still can't handle the game object efficiently.

A drivetrain won't win you an event, what you mount on top will.

Originally Posted by Ty Tremblay

Game breaking strategies like 2002 are not an accurate example in this era of FRC. 3rd robots aren't going to get picked for their hexagonal drivetrains. They're going to get picked for having solid, well driven drivetrains. If a team has to sacrifice either of those two in the least then they are not a team that should build a hexagonal drivetrain. My team, 319, is one of those teams.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Sure, there are exceptions, but I don't think Ty's assertion is incorrect. You're generally not going to win an event because you have a stellar drive train alone. A bad drivetrain can certainly lose you an event, but a good one isn't going to win without a functioning manipulator, drive team, and strategy.

Bumper profiles and bumper fabrics are things that are important for the 90th percentile teams trying to become the 95th or 99th percentile teams. They are far less important for the 50th percentile team. Rather than spending time, money, and manpower into researching bumper shape/material, it's probably better to invest that into, say, intake shape/material.

I agree with these two, but also want to add something. Making your drivetrain shaped like a hexagon isn't even the best way (in terms of effort to reward) to beat T-Bone pins! Drop down casters, smooth bumper fabric + solid core noodles, etc. all seem to produce a higher reward without having to change how you design drivetrains in the first place. Don't reinvent the wheel when you could just add one that drops down if you really need it.

Plus, how many times have you been a great scoring robot with a fast drivetrain that performs well, only to be beaten by T-bone pins? The teams that need to beat T-bones to become competitive already know this, and the teams who are reading this thread who hadn't really considered the problem before probably have bigger things to worry about than this defensive edge case.