2009 Aparatuses

[Korbin]

Allot of discussion is taking place on drive train decisions, which are in this game very important, but how about the rest of the robot functionality? Robots could benefit from being able to heard well to their human players, and also to be able to receive from them, and possibly score on other robots, using the camera or not. The amazing feat of programing a rotating accurate shooter to always score on competitors trailers is possible for some teams as demonstrated in a similar problem in aim high, but for the most part then and still now most teams will have to rely on human aim to score on other robots, and will probably opt to try and dump or some other close range scoring.

So my question, if you have to chase down another robot's trailer you have a tough job ahead of you, would the time and percent of success be higher spending that time playing defense and giving moon rocks to your human players to shoot at one of their many moving targets; who will be focusing on the match and not paying attention to the unavoidable payload specialists. Is including the functionality important? I am leaning to no, the only reason I can think is that it will help score on un-functioning robots/stationary trailers in qualifying matches, where that will certainly come up. Being agile and good at getting rocks to the specialists seems to be a more valuable design focus.

Let me know what you think about that, and the apparatus in general.