I was wondering who uses the chute? My team uses it exclusively and we were some what successful with it (when the tubes weren’t to large).
At the Pacific NorthWest Regional, I only saw one team (1983) that specifically used the chute. They could quickly go up to the chute, grab a tube and score it on the middle level. It seemed pretty effective.
Also, close to the same subject. I’ve seen one team feed tubes to thier robot over the alliance station wall.
We have the capability, but prefer the floor since doesn’t require precise positioning of the arm in three dimensional space. Literally, for us to pickup off the floor all the arm driver has to do is lower the elbow as low as it goes, lower the wrist until the bottom of the gripper hits our bumper, and open the gripper. No precision required.
Team 354 was the only team to use the chute. In fact that was teh only way they fed their bot and I think it cut the effectiveness of their bot in half. It is just a slow way to load the bot and easy to defend. They had a tremendous manipulator and drivetrain. They should think about changing their strategy and pick up the tubes from the floor instead.
Team 70 and 494 were “Making Toast” most of the time at GLR. We found it easier than grabbing from the floor, BUT it did tick off a few more seconds off the clock.:ahh:
IIRC 1519 exclusively used the chute but were very slow at it so there was a minimum of tubes they could get per match
i dont think it cut the effectiveness of our robot at all we still put up alot of ringers and actually we were really fast at getting the ringers (at times) but we still manage to end up finalists at finger lakes regionals
Thanks teams 340 and 1518. but thanks for the idea
We’re planning on possibly using the chute because we can’t pick tubes off the floor, although our first priority is the wall.
well it seemed to me that at the wisconsin regionals most teams that could score were either passing over the wall or throwing them over so they could pick off the ground.
i think i saw one team use the chute to get one right next to the wall so that they could pick up easier than raise their arm to above the wall.
We can use the chute, but we prefer to toss tubes over the top. In the eliminations, that worked really well.
Did any teams’ autonomous modes set them up in front of the chute for a quick first ringer?
My team, 1015 was incapable of grabbing “toast”. We only grabbed from the floor (though grabbing from above the wall would have been doable, but would also have been a less than ideal grip on the ringer.
i saw the Martian twins grab toast a fair amount, and i also saw team FIRE, 322 doing it a fair amount. Team 1, the Juggernauts, liked doing it too, but i think that most teams found that if they could reach the floor, that was the best way to pick up tubes.
Actually 467 preferred only to pick up from the chute. We could also pick up a ringer leaning against the far wall, but it takes a bit longer. Of course we had also have ramps and a decent drive train for defense.
1596 uses the chute exclusively. Telescoping vertical arm with cool hand-like gripper with floppy fingers that “grabbed” the tubes