Is there anyone in Connecticut who’d like to try their hand at bridge balancing with another team or teams? This would be an experiment in how to do it AND how to tell the team waaaaaay on the other side of the field what you want them to do. I think this can be accomplished independently of shooter development. We could simply load some bricks on the 'bots to simulate their weight. So your “secrets” could be safe. Or just wrap a tarp around them if you prefer.
There are, of course, two phases to this balancing action. We can try both of them as alliance and opponent styles by separating the driving stations physically to simulate the distances we will see in competitions.
We are hoping to get a bridge built soon, but we don’t have a particularly large area in which a visiting team or teams could be comfortably hosted. So this is a lame-ish offer to start with. I hope something can be arranged here in central CT before the Suffield Shakedown, where we’ll get to put what we learn about balancing to good use.
I’m nowhere near Connecticut anymore, and I’m not involved with a team this year. But this is such a good idea, I want to give it a bump.
Seriously, many teams will be making design decisions, big and small, based on how easy or hard this is. Maybe there are tricks we haven’t thought of yet. Getting some early experience with this super-critical part of the game could make a huge difference in your performance at the regional.
Our practice bridge is compete, but it probably still needs the tuning to give it dynamic properties closer to the competition ones. Our robot is apart for welding, so I don’t know about any practice session possibilities. Maybe things are equally frenzied in the other CT teams’ shops, so they’re reluctant to try bridgework with others. We still have hope of making Suffield. Or maybe I’m the only one going.
