i was wondering what types of robots were the most effective?
my teams robot is capable of storing 25+ balls with a great conveyer system that sucks up multiple balls at a time very quickly…we put 6 balls in it and they were all out in about 1.5-2 seconds… and holding a goal. we also made a tranny that allows us to be very fast, while still quite strong, or very strong.
based on what you all saw would this robot be picked by an alliance if not one of those choosing the alliance?
Our robot was the fastest and one of the strongist, and we got picked for the finals, along with another very strong bot team 7. When we teamed up we were virtually unstoppable!!:D. So my advice to you is that if your shooter fails, pray that you can still command a goal! If you can do both I think you have a good chane of getting picked, if you arent already in the top 8!
Michael D.
Team 602
Always be aware that if you are picked or not (if you are not already in the top 8) depends on how well your robot performed in the seeding matches. It sounds really good, but if you somehow loose matches against other robots despite of your apparently superior robot features, you will probably have bad luck. A lot of teams at VCU had nice ball collecting mechanisms, but few actually got them to work as they wanted to. And if you come, for example, against team #365 or others with a three-goal-grabber 'bot, you should better be very quick. It was incredible how they could manage to win control over all goals in the first few seconds of a match. And if you have no goals, no ball will help you…
After this excerpt of applied pessimism: It sounds like you have an awesome robot, good luck at your competitions and have lots of fun!
At KSC, the big strategy (aka the one used by the four semifinalists) was to have one robot grab two goals and hold them in their zone before anyone else could get a shot at them. In that way, the teams that will probably go first in the alliance selections will be the one who can grab, pull, and hold two goals the fastest.
However, a lot of matches (especially the exciting one in the quarterfinals) were decided by the number of balls in the goals. So if you have a way to **reliably\b] dump ten balls into a goal, you have a good shot of getting picked.
Though the best way to do it is to get a top-8 seed, of course. ;)**