Team 254's 2009 Robot - "Devastator"

[sdcantrell56]

I really didn't mean to turn it into a shooter versus dumper study. I hope you didn't mind Cory. I think this is without a doubt one of the best bots I have seen and probably will see this year. I always am anxious to see the 254/968 bots and this year might actually be my favorite one yet. They just keep getting more refined.

Great job again Cory and the rest of the team!!!

[dragonrulr288]

IM afraid... VEEEERY afraid O_O

[R.C.]

Cory, loving the sick frame, reminds me of our frame that we made last year (and the year before and the year before...). That is one of the coolest bots i've ever seen. Whatz the weight (under 120) and how many balls are gonna be available. I like both forms of scoring but how many balls are really gonna be there to pick up?

Nice Job Poofs/RAWC,

Can't wait to play against you at Nationals

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Rawrr, talk about designer's remorse. >.<

We were so unsure of ourselves this year about our design selection (at least I was) and now that uncertainty is finally confirmed by 148, 254, 968, and 100. $@#$@#$@#$@#$@#$@#. Hate that almost every year the design that our team rejects is proven to be the better bot and we always get beaten by that design. Ahh, oh well I guess.

Nonetheless, awesome machine as usual and I hope your drivers had a fun time practicing. Hopefully see you in Atlanta on Newton again. (06 repeat?) We still have that Programming Prowess award you guys gave us on Newton that year. ^_^

In the era of the three team alliance there is a place for everyone. Even the elite robots need support. It's tough to win matches on your own nowadays. If you do one thing well,, are reliable and work well with others those elite teams tend to notice those kind of robot and oft times want them.
Just because your robot is not elite status does not make it worthless. How you use it and carry yourself as a team that will make it far more valuable than you can possibly imagine.

[Dan Petrovic]

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.

How well does it load?

Look back to 2006. I don't think their hopper is any smaller than it was back then. My feeling is that teams with the capability to pick up balls from the floor and human player will opt to use the human player just like they did in 2006.

A team as smart as 254 would have certainly spent the time to train a human player to near perfection to take keep the drivers' hair from falling out while trying to chase down balls on this rigolith surface and to do it in a timely fashion to keep them from being a big old target.

[waialua359]

Great point that you brought up.
Will teams lean towards a floor harvester or human loader if they can do both?
In '06, you didnt have to worry about the HP, but now you do as you travel around the field.
Nonetheless, this bot can do both.

[germanystudent]

thy trailor runneth over?

[AlexD744]

Originally Posted by squirrel

....and all of the robots can each only start with seven balls, so loading and harvesting, which depend on payload specialist skill and driver skill, will still play a very large role.

Robots like 254s and 148s will make the game more exciting, and it'll be a pleasure to watch them in action!

I 100% agree with this! These designs are truely amazing but if the driver is too slow with pickup then it wouldn't matter anyway and they would only get maybe 1 oppurtunity to dump and if they don't have someone pinning that could go awry too. This game especially dumpers put a huge emphasis on driving ability.

[thefro526]

I Love it.

It has to be by far one of the best looking robots I've seen in a while. It looks almost like a bat...

On to the technical stuff though, could you show a close up of you bumper mounts if you haven't already? I know a lot of teams didn't go with cantilevered wheels because of the bumpers this yeah and I'd like to see the solution you came up with.

[funggiss]

wow that's a lot of balls and fast we can't do that many that fast

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

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.

I'm not sure how many teams actually got to play against them at the scrimmage. Maybe they can post their experiences too.

As for us, we got to play with them for about 1.5 min (before both bots took damage).

In this time they were able to easily fill their hopper and unload it into stationary trailers twice.

They literally drove circles around our bot.

That being said, they weren't able to score on us. Even with our lumbering beast of a bot we were still able to swing the trailer around enough to prevent them from scoring.

Of course their PS got like 15 rocks into our trailer I came expecting an epic 254 robot... I did not expect to get flogged by their PS!

SVR will be lunacy indeed this year.... Lunacy indeed...

[kc2pix]

Your robot scares me and makes me drool at the same time! I so want to see your robot in person, as long as it's not on the other side of the "crater"!

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Will teams lean towards a floor harvester or human loader if they can do both?

floor harvester because a human player is a source of error, any team that's been doing FRC as long as the Poofs and RAWC know that less chance of human error (ie scoring on yourself) the better.

[MrForbes]

Floor harvesting takes some time and skill too....and it doesn't work on bouncing balls, either.

[roboticWanderor]

yea but your PS only has the remaining 14 balls in his bucket, if you want to fill your hopper with 40 balls, your going to have to pick up any ball you can get.