We have a “What type of bot are you building?” poll, so how about what you think the BEST team will be?
Little explaination:
By type-specific bots I mean one real powerful, super manuverable pusher (thin bulldoser) or one extremely stable and effective stacker. Anything else can be in here, these are just the two general types.
All-in-one bots. Pretty self-explainatory. You do a little pushing, a little picking up, a little speedy traveling, a little of everything.
i think the best combination would be two all in one bots, but not as you described them. i think its entirely possible to make an all in one bot that does all of the important tasks well. and i think that a combination of two of these bots with a good strategy could win any match
But their are certain things that a bot cannot do at the same time. I was discussing this earlier with 1218.
If you have a bot with almost any type of lifting/stacking mechanism, you may not be able to fit under the rails on the sides, something that a few people think will be an important role if you really want to get from one place to another quickly.
As shown by the poll, a coupling of diversified robots would be the best because each of the robots would do their one thing well, as opposed to doing many things weakly. Of course, in the real world you almost never get paired up with the perfect partner for you.
Note to Rookies: It"s better to make a robot that does one thing well than attempting to do everything. We tried to make an everything-bot last year and it was essentially a nothing-bot.
my team last year made a goal pushing bot, and it ended up being a go 2 yards and die bot (problems with the axils popping out and the motor’s stalling)
two all in one bots would make a great team, because they could split up their goals (you make and guard the stack, we’ll get the boxes) and if one needs help, the other has the capability to do it…
on the other hand, all in one bots are hard to make, because to get all the right parts working requires a good, knowledgable team with a lot of support, and $$$$ (something my team never seems to have)
in this game pushing can be done by any bot… the boxes that are being pushed are light. I would have to say that an offensive (stacking) bot, and a defensive, High torque blocker-bot would rule the arena. With a good stacker and a good blocker, the stacks that are built buy the stacker would be protected by the blocker. Of course a match up of this type will most likely be rare.
While last year was more of a difference between a strong and sturdy goal pusher and the ball picker upper. We were match up with a ball grabber (our bot could grabb 2 goals and hold them, even push other bots around with them). We were unstopable with them… unfourtunately it was the ONLY match up of this type we had.