Small balls in 2001 competition

[archiver]

Posted by ChrisH at 05/01/2001 11:29 AM EST


Engineer on team #330, Beach 'Bots, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA JPL, J & F Machine, Raytheon, et al.


In Reply to: What about the stretcher?!?!?
Posted by Anthony S. on 04/30/2001 8:23 PM EST:



The biggest problem with the stretcher was not getting robots to pull it. The biggest problem was getting robots to ride it.

The PERCEPTION was that if you got on the stretcher you were either non-functional or couldn't get over the ramp without help. The fact that a capable wedgebot could actually score MORE base points by being on the stretcher and carried to the endzone was lost on alot of people.

The extensive Scouting was actually part of the problem here. Everybobdy would know you rode the stretcher, how would this be percieved by other teams who might be scouting you as a potential partner? Would it be that you were non-functional and therefore unreliable or that you were a team player willing to sacrifice your ego for the good of the alliance?

Besides how much fun is it as a human player to stand and watch when you have limited drive time anyway?

Technically a robot on the stretcher could pick up balls and score them. I THINK we might have been able to do that by bending up a new set of "arms" to pick up the ball with. But to do so the towing robot would have to move us into position to pick up the ball and then deposit the ball. That's a whole lot of trust on our part in the other robot's abilities. Not to mention the problems of communicating with the other team about where to move us for a good drop in the competition environment. With practice it could be done, but there was no opportunity for that.

I think the stretcher was kind of like socialism, a great idea defeated by the realities of human nature.

Chris Husmann, PE
Team 330 the Beach'Bots