Did you make a second robot? [POLL]

[Friskle]

I've seen a lot of speculation about whether people build second robots or not on here. I wanted to create a poll to see how many teams make second robots to practice after build season is over in order to test whatever.

[marccenter]

Friskie,

Our sister team 1188 tried to build a practice bot but had limited success. Should you add more finer divisions in your poll to handle this kind of situation?

team attempted to build practice bot but was not completed in time to use for this season?

[Kevin Leonard]

So this was a huge step for 5254 this year. In 2015, 5254 didn't have a robot that functioned effectively until Tech Valley Eliminations.

After a great 2015 post-season, we made a goal of having two, complete working robots by the end of build season. As such, getting done early was the #1 priority. By finishing the first robot Week 3, we were able to test and tune and get two functioning robots by the end of build.

This allowed 5254 to seed top two at both our Regionals and earn another wildcard to the Championship event.

I noticed you're from 3003, who we've obviously competed with quite a bit. You guys almost always have great robots, and I think a practice robot would help you immensely. I think you could have had your batter shot and climber working earlier with a practice bot, and until NY goes to districts, I would recommend any team here that has the capability to build a practice bot.

[Anthony Galea]

Even though we never drove with it after bag day, and scavenged it for parts after our first event, it was a great exercise to know how the bot was going to be laid out, and we were able to test the robot before we actually built it so the final bot wouldn't need any emergency changes.

Side note: 2014 and 2016 are the only years we have ever made a practice bot, and 2016 was the only year we got it driving because in 2014 we did not have a spare cRIO pneumatic module.

[Michael Corsetto]

We built two practice robots this year.

Between now and champs, we'll primarily do driver practice/auto modes with one, and iterate mechanisms on the other.

-Mike

[pmcoburn]

Echoing Marccenter - we built a second robot, and it was a huge boost to practice driving before our first event. We learned the hard way to practice driving on *carpet*. But we also scavenged heavily for our first event and haven't had a working practice robot since.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

We built two practice robots this year.

Between now and champs, we'll primarily do driver practice/auto modes with one, and iterate mechanisms on the other.

-Mike

We will be doing this next year.

The hidden side of practice bots is that you get to have a lot more fun. We got to practice with a lot teams this year, and have played a lot more scrimmage matches then any event. Its a great way to make friends.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

We built two practice robots this year.

Between now and champs, we'll primarily do driver practice/auto modes with one, and iterate mechanisms on the other.

-Mike

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

We will be doing this next year.

The hidden side of practice bots is that you get to have a lot more fun. We got to practice with a lot teams this year, and have played a lot more scrimmage matches then any event. Its a great way to make friends.

The biggest benefit of doing this was that it let our now much larger team work in a much more hands on way this year. Everyone had something to work on all build season. After we bagged our comp bot it allowed our mechanical and electrical groups full access to one machine while the other was left open for programming or driver practice.

[BrennanB]

Keep in mind this is a CD poll and in general is just taking data from "successful" teams.

[Clem1640]

We've built two robots since 2011. They are built in parallel (at the same time). The practice robot is not painted and generally has limited light-weighting machining. Other than this, we try to make them identical.

[IronicDeadBird]

We built one robot didn't like the drive train, made new drive rails for the final bot, and made new drive rails for a practice bot. It was interesting to say the least.

[jwfoss]

We built two different practice robots, it's been a long and exciting season.

[Type]

We built a practice robot that uses similar controls to our robot and similar function but looks entirely different and drives different. It's essentially just to test code, like we used it to figure out how to use two autos, then we also used it to work on vision tracking. It's not as good as our actual robot, but it's better than nothing.

[GreyingJay]

We built two nearly identical robots - differences ended up being in Victor 888 vs Victor SP motor controllers and locations/wiring. The real robot was based on the AM14U3 and the practice robot was based on the AM14U2 that we bought from an AndyMark Deal of the Day sale.

Building a practice robot is an essential part of our schedule/strategy. We bagged a robot that was physically complete but had virtually no software ready by Stop Build. We used the practice robot to debug the configuration of our pneumatic arm (up, down, and "floating"), do a bunch of software development work, autonomous testing, integrate the camera for vision processing, and many hours of drive team practice.

[Chris Mounts]

To add to what Marc said, 1188 for the first time this year built a second robot. There were pro's and con's to the effort for sure. I look at it as another step towards having a more successful team.

Pros:

• Having the second robot allowed us some extra practice time before our first event.
• It allowed us to design a completely new intake / arm between our competitions.
• Making a matching robot was possible since we have almost 100% of our robot in CAD.

Cons:

• It was a pretty large distraction having two robots to build. It maxed out our resources and budget.
• Since we played week 1 & 3 the effects were greatly reduced.
• It is currently little more than a chassis at this point.

Overall I truly believe this is a requirement to compete at the highest levels of play. We may have jumped the gun by a year or two but we learned a lot. I suspect not a single robot on Einstein will not have a twin (or 2) floating around in a trailer or at the shop.