Honestly, the overwhelming number of people on my team chose that they want to be a feeder, but my issue is that if our small sample does, in fact, reflect the general population, we are in deep trouble. There might be a lot of to be shooters that will be converted to feeders during competition. Anyone have any input on whether a team should actually try being a feeder full time? I honest to God doubt our team’s capabilities in manufacturing an accurate, consistent shooter. If my team can pull off a consistent shooter, I’ll get onto the basket boat in a heart beat, but I am staying far from it for now.
It seems as though a robot designed around reliable shooting could easily transition to be a facilitator/feeder/defense-when-there-aren’t-balls bot if all of the other robots functions perform well other than consistently accurate shooting. So by designing around the strategy to score well, and then failing to score reliably, I think a team could have themselves a VERY good feeder bot. There would probably be some advantage to designing around that strategy from the get go, but we shall see.
Well, like you said, lots of teams will go for feeders as they probably won’t be very accurate. Thus, going completely feeder in my opinion isn’t the best plan. This would almost be the same as going completely defensive last year. Where all bots could do it, but some where designed for just defense.
Feeders will be VERY useful this year though due to the issue of human players not throwing during the entire match and only during the end. Thus, we do need feeders but going 100% feeder still may not be the best idea.
UNLESS, you came up with a design to just sit in front of the drop and the human player could just drop balls in constantly and you throw them over with a launcher of sorts. This would be very useful and give the rest of the alliance valuable scoring time.
So, in my final opinion, I believe if you do a feeder correctly it is definitely worth doing 100%. Teams will pick you in finals do to your convenience and time saving. Though, if you do it wrong and it takes too much time for you to get set and can’t launch the balls to where the are needed, you probably won’t be chosen for finals.
My argument against that was the fact that we would allocate such a big chunk of our time with the camera and projectile path predictions and ect. I want to focus on a dynamic system for balancing the robot. I want to perfect that. Having designed as a feeder will let us forgo the “storage” area and just chuck the balls across the field as soon as it gets picked up. (The shooter is on a turret.)
We will be offense, defense, feeders, and everything else. We have something that is in my opinion the best design ever! (Not just because I made it.) 
Couldn’t a dynamic system be “put this accelerometer on the robot that, when activated, will take control of the drive at a slow speed until it reaches equilibrium”?
Balancing wont be as difficult as you think I believe. Check this out, its impressive:
But what good will that serve when trying to balance 3 bots? I wrote this before, but a weight shifting mechanism where all the electrical components and the shooter mechanism is on a platform which is then shifted from the front to the back of the robot. Will have to test if that will be enough to tilt the bridge in the middle and if there will be enough room on the robot for such a platform to move enough to change the center of gravity.
And I would use a gyro and not an accelerometer.
Well if u were planning on just being a feeder bot u might just want to try make a mechanism that will score in the lowest hoop and then consequently would feed very well.
That was what we called a “plan B”, but I really doubt its effect. I mean the same mechanism that can chuck a ball 50 feet can really score even at 2 feet? Highly skeptical on that being a viable option.
Any time you score, you put balls into the hands of your opponents. That means that if you score 1 point on a ball, then the same ball is given to your opponents and they score 2 or 3 with it, you come out behind on that action of scoring the one point. It may be more valuable to simply forward the balls to your offensive robots.
My team has decided that we will focus on being a shooter first, and then if we have to, a feeder (sitting one our side of the barrier and firing across the field.)
My team (not necessarily me) is thinking of a robot that is purely defensive. They assumed that most of the robots are going to be offenders and hence went with a design where the balls are caught in a net and then somehow are thrown back to our alliance robots…definitely not the best idea, i agree 
We haven’t decided yet, but my opinion is that your feeding mechanism should be your plan B if your scoring isn’t working out. You can always feed if you have a method of shooting balls. If your feeding system doesn’t work out, you have nothing.
That is what the other side’s argument is, but IMHO. To have a shooter, we would be investing so much time and weight into it. For a feeder, the only actuation you need of the shooter is the yaw. But for the actual shooter, you need both the yaw and pitch. Is that extra weight worth it if we will just go feed? Is the extra time getting the imaging system and everything worth it if the shooter is only that accurate? I would rather have spent my time perfecting the balance (and apparently, the robot does NOT need to be fully supported, will have to ask GDC about that) and have 3 robots balance. Also, because of the simplicity, the feeder mechanism will not break as much as a fully actuated shooter.
Keep in mind that your strategy opens you up to a lot of penalties. The opposing robot only needs to TOUCH its safezone and touch you. There is a penalty right there. But eventually, the opposing team might get DQ for intentionally doing that.
[quote]
My team (not necessarily me) is thinking of a robot that is purely defensive. They assumed that most of the robots are going to be offenders and hence went with a design where the balls are caught in a net and then somehow are thrown back to our alliance robots…definitely not the best idea, i agree
Keep in mind that your strategy opens you up to a lot of penalties. The opposing robot only needs to TOUCH its safezone and touch you. There is a penalty right there. But eventually, the opposing team might get DQ for intentionally doing that.[/quote]
That’s only true if your close to your opponents safe zones. If you are by the fender, you should be far away enough from the key to be safe from [G28].
I disagree. I spent about 4 hours today balancing our 2011 bot on our ramp, and it took anywhere from 9 to 40 seconds. This was with an xbox control, even though I wanted to use joysticks, so control was a little difficult. It still wasn’t easy. Many times we would go really slowly up to the center, and then the ramp would almost fluidly flip to the other side, not even pausing in the middle.
We didn’t have any code to help balance, and our ramp may be a little looser than others, so YMMW.
Test your ramp with the two batteries as they did. If you have them at 28 inches and it falls then I can’t accept the legibility that it will be as difficult as you make it sound. Though, if at 30 and its not falling, I may be a little worried.
BUT, from another thread we have found out the rules state nothing about having to be fully supported by the bridge to get the points. It just has to be ‘balanced’ so touching the ground seems to be allowed.