Did you make a second robot? [POLL]

[Friskle]

I've seen a lot of speculation about whether people build second robots or not on here. I wanted to create a poll to see how many teams make second robots to practice after build season is over in order to test whatever.

[marccenter]

Friskie,

Our sister team 1188 tried to build a practice bot but had limited success. Should you add more finer divisions in your poll to handle this kind of situation?

team attempted to build practice bot but was not completed in time to use for this season?

[Anthony Galea]

Even though we never drove with it after bag day, and scavenged it for parts after our first event, it was a great exercise to know how the bot was going to be laid out, and we were able to test the robot before we actually built it so the final bot wouldn't need any emergency changes.

Side note: 2014 and 2016 are the only years we have ever made a practice bot, and 2016 was the only year we got it driving because in 2014 we did not have a spare cRIO pneumatic module.

[Michael Corsetto]

We built two practice robots this year.

Between now and champs, we'll primarily do driver practice/auto modes with one, and iterate mechanisms on the other.

-Mike

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

We built two practice robots this year.

Between now and champs, we'll primarily do driver practice/auto modes with one, and iterate mechanisms on the other.

-Mike

We will be doing this next year.

The hidden side of practice bots is that you get to have a lot more fun. We got to practice with a lot teams this year, and have played a lot more scrimmage matches then any event. Its a great way to make friends.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

We built two practice robots this year.

Between now and champs, we'll primarily do driver practice/auto modes with one, and iterate mechanisms on the other.

-Mike

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

We will be doing this next year.

The hidden side of practice bots is that you get to have a lot more fun. We got to practice with a lot teams this year, and have played a lot more scrimmage matches then any event. Its a great way to make friends.

The biggest benefit of doing this was that it let our now much larger team work in a much more hands on way this year. Everyone had something to work on all build season. After we bagged our comp bot it allowed our mechanical and electrical groups full access to one machine while the other was left open for programming or driver practice.

[BrennanB]

Keep in mind this is a CD poll and in general is just taking data from "successful" teams.

[IronicDeadBird]

We built one robot didn't like the drive train, made new drive rails for the final bot, and made new drive rails for a practice bot. It was interesting to say the least.

[jwfoss]

We built two different practice robots, it's been a long and exciting season.

[Type]

We built a practice robot that uses similar controls to our robot and similar function but looks entirely different and drives different. It's essentially just to test code, like we used it to figure out how to use two autos, then we also used it to work on vision tracking. It's not as good as our actual robot, but it's better than nothing.

[GreyingJay]

We built two nearly identical robots - differences ended up being in Victor 888 vs Victor SP motor controllers and locations/wiring. The real robot was based on the AM14U3 and the practice robot was based on the AM14U2 that we bought from an AndyMark Deal of the Day sale.

Building a practice robot is an essential part of our schedule/strategy. We bagged a robot that was physically complete but had virtually no software ready by Stop Build. We used the practice robot to debug the configuration of our pneumatic arm (up, down, and "floating"), do a bunch of software development work, autonomous testing, integrate the camera for vision processing, and many hours of drive team practice.

[Road Rash]

Originally Posted by BrennanB

Keep in mind this is a CD poll and in general is just taking data from "successful" teams.

5586 is a second-year team that made a practice bot this year. I'm not sure if I'd call us successful* team yet, but I'm here at CD trying to just that.

*although we did make to worlds last season based on a rookie all star award

[pmcoburn]

Echoing Marccenter - we built a second robot, and it was a huge boost to practice driving before our first event. We learned the hard way to practice driving on *carpet*. But we also scavenged heavily for our first event and haven't had a working practice robot since.

[Kevin Leonard]

So this was a huge step for 5254 this year. In 2015, 5254 didn't have a robot that functioned effectively until Tech Valley Eliminations.

After a great 2015 post-season, we made a goal of having two, complete working robots by the end of build season. As such, getting done early was the #1 priority. By finishing the first robot Week 3, we were able to test and tune and get two functioning robots by the end of build.

This allowed 5254 to seed top two at both our Regionals and earn another wildcard to the Championship event.

I noticed you're from 3003, who we've obviously competed with quite a bit. You guys almost always have great robots, and I think a practice robot would help you immensely. I think you could have had your batter shot and climber working earlier with a practice bot, and until NY goes to districts, I would recommend any team here that has the capability to build a practice bot.

[FlamingSpork]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

I noticed you're from 3003, who we've obviously competed with quite a bit. You guys almost always have great robots, and I think a practice robot would help you immensely.

Both this year and last year we built practice bots, but nothing really came of it. This year, we spent a lot of time on working on a climber, but nothing came of it (as you saw at Tech Valley). We also worked on attempting vision, and we got half of the system working, but not aiming and firing correctly. (That green ring is just a decoy.) This year, our practice bot was mainly used to get our code working sufficiently to even drive and shoot.

We fixed a lot of issues on our practice bot and spent practice day of our first regional adjusting our main bot with those fixes.