Team 254's 2009 Robot - "Devastator"

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Robots like this are why 2v3 matches will be undesirable this year.

2v3 matches are also what keeps robots like this from being invincible. 1114 could win matches last year with two toasters for partners. This year, any short-handed alliance is going to have a huge uphill climb if they're down 40 at the end of auton, and even a spectacular machine will have difficulty recovering because of the limited number of game pieces.

[XaulZan11]

Before everyone scraps thier design and gives 254 the championship trophy, remember, you just saw a 7 second clip of them unloading a hopper full of balls into a stationary goal. How many times during the year do you think they will be able to fill up thier robot and empty it into a stationary goal? Just about as many times Kyle Boller throw the ball from his through the goalpost from 50 yards out in the NFL; impressive but won't win you many games. How well does it load? Does it ever get jammed (for all we know this is the tenth take), is it fast enough to even get close to trailors? Is it good at avoiding other teams from scoring on them? I'm positive the other aspects of this robot is just as impressive, but just remember there probably will be more ways than win.

Anyway, great looking robot as usual.

[nuggetsyl]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

Before everyone scraps thier design and gives 254 the championship trophy, remember, you just saw a 7 second clip of them unloading a hopper full of balls into a stationary goal. How many times during the year do you think they will be able to fill up thier robot and empty it into a stationary goal? Just about as many times Kyle Boller throw the ball from his through the goalpost from 50 yards out in the NFL; impressive but won't win you many games. How well does it load? Does it ever get jammed (for all we know this is the tenth take), is it fast enough to even get close to trailors? Is it good at avoiding other teams from scoring on them? I'm positive the other aspects of this robot is just as impressive, but just remember there probably will be more ways than win.

Anyway, great looking robot as usual.

Your right the goal will probably be moving when they fill it up or they will pin you for 2 secs. Hats off to you and 968 great bot.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

Before everyone scraps thier design and gives 254 the championship trophy, remember, you just saw a 7 second clip of them unloading a hopper full of balls into a stationary goal. How many times during the year do you think they will be able to fill up thier robot and empty it into a stationary goal? Just about as many times Kyle Boller throw the ball from his through the goalpost from 50 yards out in the NFL; impressive but won't win you many games. How well does it load? Does it ever get jammed (for all we know this is the tenth take), is it fast enough to even get close to trailors? Is it good at avoiding other teams from scoring on them? I'm positive the other aspects of this robot is just as impressive, but just remember there probably will be more ways than win.

Anyway, great looking robot as usual.

All will be answered in due time, but to answer some of your questions:

We doubt goals will ever be stationary, but if they are, we'd love to do what you see in that video to them.

We took this video because we thought the end to 148's video was awesome, and figured we should copy them and try to up the ante a little bit

It loads great, no jamming problems (This was not the tenth take-do this 100 times and that's what you'll get every time).

Has there ever been any question about whether a 254 bot is speedy enough?

To answer some of the earlier questions:

Our hopper is made of 0.0625" polycarb. Thanks to the generosity of Team 148 and Innovation First (We love IFI!) we were able to get the entire hopper punched out of a single sheet of polycarb. We bent it up on our sheet metal break in our lab and riveted/bolted the hopper together/to the super structure frame.

[AdamHeard]

Wow, looking fantastic. Can't wait for Vegas.

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

I completely agree. We have become so caught up in the semantics of these designs. There will be many different designs that will win regionals. Right now it is definitely too early to predict what will be the "be all end all design" (not that there ever will be). We have somewhat been debating shooter versus dumper and yet the ultimate will probably be a blend of the 2. 254, 148, 968, and 100 have built robots that lean more towards a "dumper" design but they are still shooting balls some distance. We (1771) lean more towards the "shooter" side of things with being able to aim more precisely, but at the same time we can still empty an entire hopper in under 3 seconds. Both designs have positives and negatives, but as long as each team takes the time to think of these and develop a strategy to take advantage of their strengths, they will have a winning design.

This is a thread about 254's robot.

254 built an amazing dumper, and clearly one of the best of the season (yeah, we can make that call now).

You're pretty much trying to justify your decision to build a shooter, by making a shooter versus dumper argument in a thread about their robot.

Make another thread about it, or start that talk in the threads about your robot (which by the way is looking pretty solid and has a totally sick color scheme).

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Hachiban VIII

lol your username is still Coryteam100

The ball scoring is fast. But what’s even more amazing is the speed and maneuverability on the regolith. You need to upload a vid of them driving.

I just realized no one has really commented on this.

So not only can they score amazingly well, they are fast and maneuverable? That's going to be tough to beat.

[nahstobor]

Did everyone forget about defense after overdrive? If anyone hasn't noticed it's back if you want to play some.

But seriously 254 it looks good, looking forward to seeing this beast in Atlanta.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by jgannon

2v3 matches are also what keeps robots like this from being invincible. 1114 could win matches last year with two toasters for partners. This year, any short-handed alliance is going to have a huge uphill climb if they're down 40 at the end of auton, and even a spectacular machine will have difficulty recovering because of the limited number of game pieces.

While it would stink for their alliance to be down like that, I would pay to watch 254 battle a 40 point deficit. Talk about spectacular.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by nahstobor

Did everyone forget about defense after overdrive? If anyone hasn't noticed it's back if you want to play some.

But seriously 254 it looks good, looking forward to seeing this beast in Atlanta.

Although its still there, there's that thing called coefficient of friction. I wouldn't call it real "defense" but perhaps "strategic operations." =P For me real defense is pushing the living daylights out of an opposing team while still having one of the fastest bots on the field...I likes my carpets.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Although its still there, there's that thing called coefficient of friction. I wouldn't call it real "defense" but perhaps "strategic operations." =P For me real defense is pushing the living daylights out of an opposing team while still having one of the fastest bots on the field...I likes my carpets.

Have you seen any matches? You can easily push a robot the length of the field. Defense will be the same as any other year, maybe easier.

[tanner2point0]

Can we borrow one of those?

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Cory

Our hopper is made of 0.0625" polycarb. Thanks to the generosity of Team 148 and Innovation First (We love IFI!) we were able to get the entire hopper punched out of a single sheet of polycarb. We bent it up on our sheet metal break in our lab and riveted/bolted the hopper together/to the super structure frame.

We never thought of using our 10ft sheet metal break for the polycarb.
And now we know. We were using a heat roller to make bends.

[ejSabathia]

Originally Posted by Uberbots

The only problem with this bot is that if it misses, there are 40 balls on the floor.

(though the chance of all 40 balls missing on even a moving target is quite low)

nice job poofs, coupled with a pinning robot there is no way you guys could lose.

If our drive team ever unloads 40 balls onto the floor they will be scrubbing the floor of our shop with toothbrushes

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

Have you seen any matches? You can easily push a robot the length of the field. Defense will the same as any other year, maybe easier.

We designed for this situation. In a perfect match this is when our scoring will take place

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by waialua359

We never thought of using our 10ft sheet metal break for the polycarb.
And now we know. We were using a heat roller to make bends.

God you have a nice shop!

Polycarb bends real nice actually, I've bent .031" and .062" with no problems before. I've tried .125", and it sometimes tears at the edges of the bends.

[VanMan]

Its amazing. Our shooter can shoot from up to 26 feet away on a turret though so we can shoot the whole match, while you all are chasing people around. It still looks amazing though.