Joint Practices: Some observations

[MrJohnston]

We've now had several days of practice with three other local teams and, though I don't at all believe that the four robots are truly indicative of the entirety of the FRC community, here are some observations.

* Of the four teams, two qualified for St. Louis last year and both made it into eliminations - one was on the field throughout elims, the other didn't play. One of the other two robots was above average in the PNW. The other team is largely without mentors and struggling.

* All four have been designed to go under the low bar. At least three definitely will be able to do so... The other is not fully enough constructed yet to know for certain.

* Two have pneumatic wheels - one of the two handles the defenses very well. The other really struggles. One has treads and seems to handle the defenses very well - though needs some adjustments for the rough terrain. The fourth has mecanum wheels and seems to handle the defenses pretty well.

* Two shoot in the high goal, the other two shoot low. One of the high goal shooters is looking very accurate with vision tracking, the other is still in development and has not been fully tested. The two low goal shooters were not tested here, yet.

* Three of the four robots are planning to be able to deal with all defenses. One of those three seems to almost have them all, but needs some fine tuning. Two have about half of them down, but need to add a couple more mechanisms before they are going to have it down. The fourth is hoping to be able to always be able to deal with at least two in every set up.


It was just interesting to see the four robots that were developed completely independently of one-another and where they were all similar and different.