Storing Tetras on Robot

[MisterX]

I did a search and could not find anything so I figrued I'd ask:

I was just curious as to how many tetras you are planning on having your robot handle? Also where do you plan to store any extra tetras?


edit: I am fully aware that you can only grab one tetra at a time but as far as I know there are no rules against storing multiple tetras. If wrong please post rule and I will promptly delete this thread and sorry for any inconvenience

[LivingDeadMan]

I think the rules say that you can only pick up one tetra at a time.

[NotaNerd]

At this point, it's unknown. But we know that we want to be as efficient as possible. If that means holding 10 on a grabber arm, so be it. Unfortunately, there are many outside factors that affect the number we carry. In addition, if you just leave a pile of tetras sitting on the field, they'll be stolen.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by LivingDeadMan

I think the rules say that you can only pick up one tetra at a time.

That has nothing to do with it--you just grab them one at a time several times over.

As for us, I don't know. We may not even stash tetras on our robot--we'll see.

[Petey]

We're not sure as to what our final capability will be, but a careful analysis of the game (backed up with basic, human-acted testing) seems to suggest that it will be vital to store some tetras on your robot, because the transit time is too valuable to be wasted.

That is all.

--Petey

[Justin M.]

I'm sure that it as many as your bot can hold. I would check the rulebook to be sure.

[Squirrelrock]

we only plan on holding one at a time, but we have a shifting system that's just awesome(ly obvious). We may have less of a problem with transit time.

However, the debate on hold more vs lower center of gravity/lower weight went on for quite a while (almost 2 hrs straight) and most people still don't like what happened, but we agreed to a wierd system of managment this year, and the viceprezez agreed on hold one and shift gears.

[Garrix]

It will be quite difficult to hold multiple tetras on your robot because the tetra is almost as large as most robots, and tetras weigh 9 lbs each. If you have a stack of tetras on your robot, you will have balance issues.

I do not see what the problem is of having one of you alliance partners (going to and fro from the loading zones)and keep on feeding your robot tetras in a stack on the ground. The opposing team really couldn't steal the tetras because they are color coordinated... well they could just throw them out of the field, but that would be just plain mean, and not gracious professionalism.

[ZoNeGuY]

Thats alot of weight for 6+......
IF you store enough AND manage to cap, then go ahead.

[Petey]

Originally Posted by Garrix

It will be quite difficult to hold multiple tetras on your robot because the tetra is almost as large as most robots, and tetras weigh 9 lbs each. If you have a stack of tetras on your robot, you will have balance issues.

Not necessarily--

Consider the fact that, if you can store them to the "rear" of your robot (rear being defined as the end that is not the home of your grabber/forklift/arm device), you could conceivably use your tetras as an easy counterbalance that doesn't factor into your weight requirement.

I do not see what the problem is of having one of you alliance partners (going to and fro from the loading zones)and keep on feeding your robot tetras in a stack on the ground. The opposing team really couldn't steal the tetras because they are color coordinated... well they could just throw them out of the field, but that would be just plain mean, and not gracious professionalism.

This is not unlike the strategy our bot used last year--we were an extremely efficient ball feeder, and scored well because of it.

I do believe that it will be difficult to work on the field this year. With the weight and loading stations--not to mention the new paradigm offered by the addition of another team on a field that is, essentially, the same size as last year--I think we're going to see extremely complex on-field dynamics.

--Petey

[Steve P]

Originally Posted by LivingDeadMan

I think the rules say that you can only pick up one tetra at a time.

You can only place a stack one high on a goal at a time? I thought you could pick up a stack of 2-3 and palce it on the goal.

I know you can only take 1 tetra from the automated loading station and then you have to back off and then go back on, but you can only place one on a goal at a time? Wheres it say that?

[Chris Bright]

we plan on holding a few on the back of our robot. We haven't worked out exactly how we are going to do it, however our plan is to hould them upside down.

[looneylin]

I think you can hold more than one tetra at a time.
I think stacking may cause problems so we're sticking with the basics

[CSWilken]

There are more tetras available to the manual loading area than to the auto loading area. So It might be worthwhile to have a strategy of loading multiple tetras on the robot before placing them on the goal. This would involve going in several times to the manual station. While seemingly slower there might not be the traffic jam that will form with three robots on an alliance competing for the same auto zones.

[MSBlaster]

This was a question with our team as well, so i decided to check in the manual for it. One of the rules (G17) said that you could not load more then one tetra on the bot while it was in the loading zone, but it didn't say anything about actually being able to hold more then one tetra. So we were able to draw this conclusion: You can move your bot into the loading zone, load the tetra on it, have the bot move out of the loading zone, and then move it back, and repeat above. It mioght be more time consuming, or it might not. I guess its for you to experiment with and find out.