Unique robot design?

[Chris is me]

I don't want to post our design yet just because I don't want to post something that doesn't work, and we're still ironing out the bugs. But I think we have a fairly unique concept. I wouldn't be surprised to see a half dozen other teams do it, but it should stand out. Whether it stands out because it's an unnecessary gimmick, or because it's a novel solution to scoring in this year's game, remains to be seen. We have no frame cutout and it has nothing to do with the center bins.

[Sperkowsky]

I agree I feel as if everyone is either using a elevator with acrylic tabs or an elevator with a pheumatic squeezing arm. I think the robots who do great are the ones who are different for instance I saw one bot that is a conveyer belt. I'm still interested in what 254 has done to pick up noodles as that's the one game peice I truly ignored.

[fr05ty27355]

While I do feel that there will be a large number of robots that are very similar this year, I expect we will also see some very out-of-the box designs that could get pretty complex. We still have yet to see much from the top-tier teams, and I'm willing to bet many of them will have some pretty unique designs.

[AllenGregoryIV]

We haven't seen many recycling container bots posted yet.

There are at least a few of us building arms for that purpose.
Video and blog

There are going to be some amazingly unique robots this year. I can't wait to see what some of the historically creative teams come up with. (67, 118, 190, 469, and many others)

[aldaeron]

Personally I am waiting to see the CheesyOctopus: an 8 armed robot that can grab 4 cans from the step and make a stacked tote set and still have one arm for hitting walls.

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Use sensors to collect data about the surrounding environment, then discard it and drive into walls.

During Teleop I imagine said CheesyOctopus will launch no less than 4 tethered quadcopters to gather all the totes from both alliance areas and score over 1000 points.

-matto-

[Squeakypig]

One possibility that people haven't mentioned here is the multi-bot (besides the Octo-254 previously mentioned). It is very possible to have 2 separate devices connect with a tether working together to either double stack or one stacks totes and the other tops off with containers. This sort of design is either going to take the world by storm or crash and burn. No in betweens for that design in my opinion.

[Addison4300]

We are planning to make our robot a hybrid robot with a removable 'claw' to switch between our tote claw and container claw depending on our alliance partners.

[Bwalker]

Team 1448 has a couple tricks up our sleeve, and a pretty ingenious method of changing our robot's dimensions. *cough* *cough*

[Addison4300]

Originally Posted by Bwalker

Team 1448 has a couple tricks up our sleeve, and a pretty ingenious method of changing our robot's dimensions. *cough* *cough*

Pneumatic extenders maybe?

[Bwalker]

Originally Posted by Addison4300

Pneumatic extenders maybe?

We'll post pictures in the coming weeks.

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by Bwalker

Team 1448 has a couple tricks up our sleeve, and a pretty ingenious method of changing our robot's dimensions. *cough* *cough*

Rotation about the W-axis?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

Rotation about the W-axis?

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

[Justin Montois]

I think this year you will see more robot variation than in any prior year.

Its going to be crazy.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

There is nothing in the rules about extending in to the W area that the other side of the field occupies . . .

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

I do not recall anything in the rules disallowing movement outside 3 dimensional space.