Will this year's game be a war of attrition?

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I'm predicting many between-regional arm rebuilds to remove floor loaders, sadly.

I agree with the concern but not the conclusion. There will be floor loaders. Some will raise them while traveling AND some teams (like ours) will train drivers to drive in reverse as fast as forward so the impact is not with the loader. You can always turn safely in your zone.

I hope everyone but us removes their floor loader, it'll make us that much more attractive for picking.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Sunshine

I hope everyone but us removes their floor loader, it'll make us that much more attractive for picking.

if everyone else did remove theirs, you'd probably be doing the picking

[Grim Tuesday]

Due to poor machining, we have spares for most parts on our manipulator.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by martin417

Most of the robot pictures I have seen posted show mechanisms outside the frame perimeter. By the end of any given regional, I would not be surprised to see a significant proportion of those robots with no usable manipulator.

This is another good reason to have a detachable manipulator and a spare. It won't help you for the match it gets broken, but hopefully you will be in better shape for the next match.

[MaxMax161]

We know our manipulator is going to get the s!@# kicked out of it so I think we are using some of our 30 lbs with 4 extra. I know as soon as the doors open our manipulator people will get to building as many extra as they can.

[AndyH]

Thanks this is interesting.
The reasons you lay out here is why our students designed a tube pickup tool that when the robot travels the tube is inside the bumper zone. May help keep the bot together. That and my annoying speeches about make it TOUGH.
Tough is something that the team has started focusing on in the last few years, because mentor Andy won't shut-up about it.