Hi everyone! Just looking for what kind of niche my team might be able to fit into. What exactly is everyone’s mechanisms? Are you doing mostly cargo manipulation, hatch panels, or both? Are you looking to climb at all? What are you planning on doing during the sandstorm?
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Game piece manipulation: We haven’t fully decided on what designs we’re going to use, but I’m working on a double reverse four bar lift that will be able to place hatches and eject (a short horizontal distance) cargo into every level of the rocket and the cargo ship.
Climbing: We have a decent idea for a level three climber. If it doesn’t pan out, then we’ll fall back to an idea for a level two climber that should be easier to design and build.
Sandstorm: We will be using a camera to stream video to our driver station. We will also likely use computer-assisted alignment for both the sandstorm and the game as a whole, due to the low margin of error when placing hatch panels.
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Our team is attempting to manipulate both game pieces to all levels of the rocket and cargo ship. We will have both ground acquisition and station acquisition for hatches and cargo. As for climbing we will definitely be climbing to level 3, and it looks like we will be able to bring a teammate up with us.
What will you guys be looking for in a teammate? Assuming that you can place relatively well, what might you want to see in other robots on your team?
My personal opinion, I would look for teams that can get up on the second / third level of the platform fairly quickly (faster than it would take them to score the equivalent amount of points in balls/hatches) and be able to consistently score in lowest set of goals. Out if the 40 possible places to score, 24 of them are at the lowest level, so being able to do those quickly would allow another team to focus on the higher goals in either rocket. When it comes to sandstorm, through either autonomous or driver control, be able to score one hatch consistently without colliding with partners. Above all else, I think having a reliable drivetrain and electronics is extremely important, if your cargo manipulator brakes, you can still play defence, score hatches, and climb at the end, but if your drivetrain fails, all those other working mechanisms are essentially meaningless.
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All of the prototypes we have made are for both. They do both consistently well so far.
We’re looking for a robot that can score low, in the low bays of the rocket and the cargo ship. And then whoever has the lightest robot on our team will climb with us. Depending on the matchup the 3rd bot would ideally be playing defense to slow opponents scoring
We are hoping to have at least one teammate a match who can act as left tackle; i.e. keep the other teams defense off our back while we score. We think the ability to protect 2 scoring bots from a defender will likely be more valuable than the ability to play defense on the other side.
My optimal alliance partner for the robot we’re building (attempting to be the top seed at our events) would be a fast, low only robot with a floor pickup for both game pieces. They would be the fastest low cycler available when we’re drafting. For my 3rd robot/2nd round pick, I would prioritize low cycling ability 1st followed by drivetrain pushing strength. They would likely be doing defense and counter defense in addition to cycling/feeding game pieces.
For reference, take a look at 2976 from powerup, even when they weren’t scoring, they they were still able to contribute to the allaince considerably using only their drivetrain to shut down members of the other alliance. The robot was simple and reliable, it could score in switch and exchange, and could drive consistently. Without the ability to score in the scale at all, they were still picked and ended up becoming world champions.