How much progress do teams usually make by now? As a rookie team we are really worried about falling behindemphasized text
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This year it depends on your first competition whether or not you are falling behind. I’d say if your first event is Week 1, you should 100% have your kit chassis built by the end of your Friday meeting. You should have already worked out a priority list (and validated it with some experienced teams/mentors), and the first thing on that list for a rookie should be Driving. You should be prototyping any mechanisms you are planning to build, and you should have a solid idea of your plan for each week/day the season. I recommend a Gantt chart with soft and hard deadlines for each and every task you need to accomplish.
By the end of next week you should have your kit chassis driving with a mockup electronics setup and some very basic code. You should also be working to draw/CAD your designs for mechanisms.
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Thanks for the tips! We have built our KOP bot and are in the process of prototyping various mechanisms.
Is it driving yet? Also, do you mind sharing your priority list or your plans for the season so that I might be able to give some more relevant suggestions?
Just to throw my two cents in, this is my “getting picked at an event” priority list:
a. Can score low goals without fuss
b. Can move balls from the loading zone to the opponent sector
c. Can mop up balls from our sector so the other team doesn’t have tons of easily scorable points
d. Can climb consistently in the middle of the switch
Unless you’ve got great machining resources and some veteran mentors, I wouldn’t get too caught up in shooting high goals. Doing the hardest task poorly won’t get you as far as doing the easier stuff well.
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We were rookie all star and tried to keep our first season (2014) simple …Defense. We could take out one of the the Low Goals near 100% and High goal at 3% in 2014 and took severe damage but were built like a tank steel plate and all , often the other team received more damage ramming into us . We went to St Louis and still are trying to get back by winning it.
Do what you want , just do it well. Have a business plan and impress the judges.
My 2 cents this year: a good DEFENSE bot on alignment line distance is a viable concept add in a Hang …own the alignment line…“none shall pass” and bother OUTER/INNER shots feed some shooters …be a pest and earn RAS
You will never have a chance at RAS again , so own it. It will greatly help your team the following seasons now seeing half of the best in the World
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Last year we were done with our base cad by week 1 and had our kop done by day 5. Get the kop bot on your cad account and start fitting your prototyped mechanisms to the drive train. Once you finish prototyping make your final design in a day and get every custom part you made manufactured as quick as possible you should start assembling by week 4-5 and start programming your mechanisms.
We followed that basic timeline last year and won a regional as a third pic and got rookie all star at our second event.
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You are far ahead of many experienced teams
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That’s some great progress, having a bot this early. My only recommendation is that invest in your drive team. While your robot quality is important, it’s equally important to have skilled people driving it.
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