The thing about scoring algae is that Ri3D teams have shown that it can easily be done with a mechanism originally built for coral, so prioritizing it does not make much sense, because you will likely be able to get almost the same algae performance with an adapted mechanism that was originally intended for coral scoring. If you prioritize coral, you will likely be able to score coral consistently by your first competition, where it will be the most valuable, and by your second, you can have it adapted to score algae by your second competition, where algae will likely be valuable. We made this mistake last year by prioritizing the amp; we did well at our first competitions and went to districts, but we couldnāt shoot into the speaker, and almost every other robot had a speaker shooter they could use to shoot up into the amp; we were still one of the most consistent amp bots, but our inability to shoot into the speaker resulted in us not doing very well, and we werenāt selected for an alliance.
Yāall should know that my bias this year is different than in the past, and probably different from yāalls. I am no longer directly in charge of day-to-day for a team, and am focused on making a larger program sustainable after I step aside completely, rather than on winning or progressing through tournaments. Also, my team is only doing a single competition and will not be advancing regardless of their performance. So I may argue for the viability of algae, and I think thatās a real thing that is being mostly overlooked. But Iām also trying to end up with a robot that can play foursquare with 3rd graders after the season ends.
And nothing says you cant shoot algae into the net from their side of the field. Defense+algae all at once.