Team Alpha finishes their robot the Friday before ship and they are seventeen pounds under weight due to their students being very cautious about weight limitations. Team Alpha has always had a history of being over weight and the students wanted to change that this year so they went “Cheesy” all over their bot. They realize that since they are seventeen pounds under weight that they can add some weight to their robot or they can keep it light. The students all get together and the engineers huddle and in their input. What does Team Alpha do? Why? What are your justifications and reasonings behind your decision?
If you’re planning on being lifted by another robot it may be handy to be lighter. While most lifters have been planning on lifting two, 150lb robots, it may make life easier on them if you’re not.
Keep it light for shipping and crating. Then make small steel weights that can be simply bolted on to your robot, should you ever need to remove part of the weight for a new component but not all. Simple weights would be small 1/2" and 1/4" steel plates with drilled mounting holes.
I agree as well. You don’t want to be pushed around while trying to score.
As for being a benefit to those alliance members who are going to attempt to lift you, I feel like most teams are making mechanisms which are going to be able to handle a max weight robot anyway, so those extra pounds probably wouldn’t matter all that much to them anyway.