We followed this design method almost to the letter this year! Once we had decided to go with a Quokka-style robot, we started figuring out critical dimensions. For a 14" note, we figured an 18" intake would be a good width, a compromise between large enough to be effective and not too large. For an 18" intake, we roughed out that a 22" wide robot would be ideal. We then calculated that a 28" long robot would be needed to fit the arm style, and started work on assembling our drive base. Compared to our previous robots, this is by far our smallest and lightest.
While we didn’t quite hit out 18" wide intake goal due to packaging constraints (we only got 16"), we are fully on board the small robot train. Smaller, lighter, faster to accelerate, faster to rotate, and a lot more benefits mentioned here.
One big benefit we had with being small was our ability to do a 4-piece amp-side auto without touching the center notes:
