How many days do your programmers get with a fully built robot before stop build day?

[Hitchhiker 42]

This year, our programmers had much more time than previous years. The programmers received the robot Thur/Fri before bag & tag. Then, we attended Suffield Shakedown on Sat, and Mon/Tue were a little bit of a scurry to quickly switch a component from a motor (window motors are bad for high loads we found) to pneumatics. Overall, I was mostly satisfied with the time we got.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

(window motors are bad for high loads we found)

After putting one or more window motors on all four robots I've helped my team build, I can assert that window motors are bad for just about everything.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

After putting one or more window motors on all four robots I've helped my team build, I can assert that window motors are bad for just about everything.

I have 4 18-year old window motors and 4 11 year old window motors that have done a great job of occasionally raising and lowering car windows and are still going strong. On FRC robots, we have mixed experience: When we have just tossed them at a problem, we've had the worm gearbox fly apart faster than the arm it was driving (trying to lower the bridge in Rebound Rumble). When we've done the math and used them in situations within their torque and speed capabilities (e.g. raising and lowering our rung deflector for Ultimate Ascent), they have performed well. If it's too big a job for a servo, and a BAG motor would require a third VP stage or two high-reduction VP stages, consider the humble worm-geared window motor in your kit of parts.

[tjwolter]

Rookie Team last year. I got the Build team to hand over the competition 'bot with one week to spare. Of course when you have that much time to tweak and troubleshoot you do break some things....but that's the time to break 'em. We were out of the chute ready at competition. Our software kids never did quite debug a few minor issues but hey, we were rookies..

[CalTran]

Definitely far less than they deserve. We aim for a week, but usually they get 24-48 hours.

[adciv]

Originally Posted by tjwolter

Of course when you have that much time to tweak and troubleshoot you do break some things....but that's the time to break 'em.

We routinely discover what needs to be made "more robust" during programming. The programmers argument is if they're breaking something, the drive team will break it during a match. Finding failure modes and correcting them before competition will improve your rankings more than anything else.

[Hitchhiker 42]

A lot of teams do a second practice robot. Our team hasn't done one yet, but we want to this year. Is there any advice you'd give to a lower-budget team on doing this?

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

A lot of teams do a second practice robot. Our team hasn't done one yet, but we want to this year. Is there any advice you'd give to a lower-budget team on doing this?

Use the kitbot and buy a second kitbot. Now you have a practice robot.

Build your scoring mechanisms you want to tune under the withholding limit. Then move that from comp bot kitbot to practice bot kitbot between events.

If you want to do practice robot on a budget, this is a great way to do it.

To OP:

Our robot programmers generally get the first robot at day 30 of Build Season. They almost always have one practice robot available during the Competition Season. They get two full robots for at least a few weeks during competition season. Often, one of the two practice robots is stolen by mechanical to fix items or test modifications.

-Mike

[adciv]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

A lot of teams do a second practice robot. Our team hasn't done one yet, but we want to this year. Is there any advice you'd give to a lower-budget team on doing this?

Here's how we do it now:
Build proof of concept drive train. The programmers get this for testing and driving around and for sensor integration. This was very useful this year as we found out we needed to redesign for the moat. Eventually this gets reworked into the practice robot. Quality is usually less than we'd like but we learn how to build the robot. Once that's largely settled, the competition robot is built. The competition robot gets more care and is generally higher quality as we've learned how to do it from the practice robot. Programming may only get a few days on the competition robot but it's largely finding the small differences between the two at this point and taking that into account in code.

The key thing is getting to the point you can build both during build season. If you can't, build the competition robot first and then work on reducing your time over the years to get the 2nd robot up and running. Also, you need to try to build them as identical as possible. If the competition robot has a mistake in it, you might need that mistake on the practice robot so include it.

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

A lot of teams do a second practice robot. Our team hasn't done one yet, but we want to this year. Is there any advice you'd give to a lower-budget team on doing this?

There are two types of practice bots that teams build: prototype bots and replica competition bots. Prototype bots are built first and then the lessons learned from them go into building the competition bot. These are not exactly the same as the competition bot, since revisions are typically made after it is built. Replica bots are built at the exact same time as the the competition bot and are usually identical save for a paint job or other cosmetic things.

It is important to know which type of practice bot you want to build. I think most teams go more of the prototype bot route, though some will upgrade it after bag to make it as close as possible. Warning: if you go this route and have the intention of using it after bag to program, YOU WILL NOT be able to transfer code and have stuff just work. (side story: This year we did this and our first competition match of the season we drove backwards in auto. Turns out our practice bot had the intake on the other side and that is what the programmers programmed our auto to.) I have plenty of other stories where that came from and this was our first year building a practice bot.

Regardless of what type of bot you build, I would say to expect to spend equal or greater than what you spend on your competition bot. Not only do you need to buy another control system, you will find yourself having to buy more of things that you had one bot's worth of just lying around in the shop. Ultimately if you are trying to build a second bot with near-identical functionality, you will need to get near-identical parts. There are areas that you can save a little money, like using older motor controllers, but I would say the best case scenario is you plan to spend 2x and you end up slightly under budget.