Teamwork Strategy for Scoring

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Taylor

I disagree - with the robot off, if we hand-push the robot on linoleum, the wheels don't turn the transmission gears. If we hand-push the robot on carpet, the sprockets turn. The wheels are grippier on carpet than they are on regolith.

Well yes, I realize they are grippier on carpet, but from what I've heard about people testing their robots in both situations, its not as much of a difference as people are speculating. A situation I see described a lot is one of a robot pushing match where a weaker robot gets pushed by a stronger robot onto the carpet, where it regains so much traction that it overcomes the stronger one and gets back onto the regolith, then gets pushed back, etc. I don't think this is going to happen as much as people predict- there are other driving dynamics, such as the trailers, the robots slipping around each other sideways rather than a strictly linear pushing match, and the real difference in pushing power of the robots compared with how much traction the carpet will add. I'm not saying the dynamics of carpeting and regolith are identical, but rather that I don't think they're as astronomically different as some people thought (especially toward the beginning when not much testing had been done).