Week 2 Regionals: Veterans Still Have No Advantage

[T3_1565]

Originally Posted by meatmanek

I don't think this game is 'dumbed down', as you say, and especially not because we're only allowed to handle one tube. This year's game provides quite a few different choices in effective arm and grabber design. You can use an articulated arm, a 4-bar linkage, a sliding elevator, a telescoping arm, and anything else your team can come up with. Grabber designs include pinch-type grabbers, curved pincers, two spatulas, wheel type, and grabbers that deal with the inside of the tube. Optimization and automation can be done with sensors and programming. In terms of ramps, I have seen many clever designs, including lifter types where the lifting robot does the work, cable driven ramp extensions, ramps where a robot driving up will extend the ramp, and so many others.

The focus this year is on tube handling and lifter design, rather than storing game pieces.

True enough. I was just using the word used before me instead of making up my own I suppose. I am completely fine with the game as it is right now, and I like the fact you can focus on very very specific parts of your design now because you don't need a complicatied robot to be able to do everything. I am still impressed with what they can come up with