Designs that would never work...

[Cyberguy34000]

This isn't about practical, it's about having fun and thinking outside the box... tetrahedron.... whatever....

[tkwetzel]

My first thougt was spider-bot: 6-8 arms for grabbing tetras as fast as possible and then being able to run around and cap goals without having to return for more tetras right away. This was only a dream as we do not have enough motors to control so many appendages. (I know, motors aren't the only control devices). I think this is very far-fetched, but I think that a team (possibly Beatty) may try this and succeed very well.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

One possibility would be a huge volcano robot. It would sit right midfield and then spontaneously ahve a bunch of arms that yanked out to steal all the tetras. Obviously there are numerous problems with this. It's illegal to descore this year. Also, it has to obtain it from automatic or human player by entering a zone.

[Ductapemaster05]

now see what you have to do on something like the spider design is just have it pick up one tetra put it in the middle and have it sit on top of the center goal then have the apendages fold out and grab tetras and place them onto the remaining 8 outside goals while its still perched up ontop of the middle goal, then you wouldnt need to worry about getting backon your side with the amount of points you will rack up

[Cyberguy34000]

Originally Posted by Ductapemaster05

now see what you have to do on something like the spider design is just have it pick up one tetra put it in the middle and have it sit on top of the center goal then have the apendages fold out and grab tetras and place them onto the remaining 8 outside goals while its still perched up ontop of the middle goal, then you wouldnt need to worry about getting backon your side with the amount of points you will rack up

So what your saying is having a robot that can sprout 8 30-foot long arms? Normally, I would say It would never fit but I think if we bend the fabric of the space-time continuum it might just work.

Do they mention anything about inter-dimensional manipulators in the rules?

[Wetzel]

Every year our team discounts something as impossible to do. Then I see some team that pulled it off.

Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity.

Wetzel

[n0cturnalxb]

Tentacled robot? Have it load all of its (9, I would think) arms up with tetras, move to the middle, and then just sit and wait until the match is almost over. Then, unload all 9 arms, one tetra for each goal.

You get.. what.. 80 points minimum from all that?

[geeknerd99]

We somehow ended up spending half an hour trying to tell a teammate that building an unfolding, 27-foot wide wall robot would be bad strategically (no offensive capabilities) and would weigh at least half a ton if built with enough strength to stop other bots from going across it.

After our kickoff meeting was over, he was still trying to convince people that a wall was the best place to go...

[Cyberguy34000]

Hey would someone check this out in the rules? I didn't see anything that would actually disqualify this robot but I wouldn't want to be the team building it. Seeing as to how it make the team that built it the scourge of the computation.

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Bed Sheet Bot

This robot would pretty much have one goal. It would make its way to the enemy control station, and then unfold, and expand its full size curtain over the enemy station, blocking their entire view, and rendering the enemy alliance helpless.

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It would defiantly go against gracious professionalism. But would it be legal?

[sojouner06]

the perfect robot would be one that is effecient, fast, BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: SIMPLE!!!!!!!!!

[NoodleKnight]

nerf bot
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it's something I've ALWAYS wanted to do, first off, you can probably cram the thing into a small box and mail it for a cheap price. It doesn't hurt if it backs into your shins or falls on your feet. Lightweight. You can scare people by throwing it at them. Disadvantage? It more than likely won't work.

How about a robot that eats other robots?

[russell]

you notice theres a rule that says you cannot use a grabber to rip out wire or hoses. There is another rule that says you may not put something under another robot then lift it up. So what you do is you build a wedge shaped robot that drives under other robots and lifts them up, without actually lifting. Then you have a little probes that plug into their programming port, then you reprogram their robot to drive around autonomously and put your color tetras on all the goals. Its like the borg from startrek. And as far as I can tell its actually legal.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by russell

you notice theres a rule that says you cannot use a grabber to rip out wire or hoses. There is another rule that says you may not put something under another robot then lift it up. So what you do is you build a wedge shaped robot that drives under other robots and lifts them up, without actually lifting. Then you have a little probes that plug into their programming port, then you reprogram their robot to drive around autonomously and put your color tetras on all the goals. Its like the borg from startrek. And as far as I can tell its actually legal.

The rules also never explicitly say that I can't park a Boeing 747 right in the middle of the play field and use it as an obstacle for the other alliance. But after a little thought, something tells me that I probably should not do it.

Every now and then, the judicious application of a modicum of common sense can make all the difference in the world.

-dave

[looneylin]

I was thinking, at first, about a bot that would knock off all the opponents tetras from the goals n then dump it outside the arena. then it would continuously go over to the opponent's loading platforms n knock over the tetras or keep the other bots from accessing the manual loading platform. Also, it would herd all the goal tetras into a corner so that only our alliance had access to them.

[phrontist]

I want to see a bot that stacks tetras into a pyramid and then climbs it to cap goals...