Team Update #1

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

With that mind set, you have already lost. You are limiting yourself. Every year there is someone who states, "GAH! these rules are going to make sure that all the robots look/play alike. How Boring!" Every year I am amazed at the ingenious and creative ways teams go about solving the challenges in both FRC and FTC. So you can continue to think along these same lines and get what you expect, therefore proving yourself right, or you can try and look beyond those limits you are placing on yourself.

I guarantee someone has already designed the best minibot this year. It will be something that other teams couldn't get to work or thought of but tossed the idea aside as impractical.

Please see my post above about physics. The fundamental issue here is that we're given exactly one method of converting stored electrical energy into mechanical energy. This method limits you to, at most, 16.8W of mechanical power. This gives you a hard and definite limit of just how fast you can lift X lbs to Y inches. If the GDC allows minibots to expand or detach parts, then there's discussion to be had on whether to fire up something light, or drag the entire minibot up the pole.

It looks pretty certain that the GDC ISN'T going to allow expanding minbots or detachable parts, so your only option is to haul the entire minibot up the pole. So you know right away the you're hauling 2 motors and a battery up the pole, and you want to absolutely minimize any wasted energy. You want every last erg you can get to go into lifting the bot. It really, really focuses your design.

What about the bot that spins around the pole as it goes up? Nope, all that rotational kinetic energy is a waste. Big honkin' wheels? Nope, more wasted rotational energy. Lots and lots of gears? And waste all that energy in friction in the bushings? Umm... maybe a flag to wave around at the top? Nope, don't have the grams to spare. These constraints pin you down to the absolute bare minimum necessary to get the job done. The most successful minibots will have the minimum necessary wiring, maybe one gear step up (yes, up), a battery, and the lightest frame possible. The only real question open to you is how you latch the minibot onto the pole as quickly and high as possible, within these other constraints.

So it's not the fun, crazy, creative kind of engineering we get to do on the rest of the robot. It's the focused, detailed, iterative kind of engineering that's rather less popular, but rather more common.