Just a suggestion. I think that in upcoming competitions, teams should get bonus point for using the least amount of parts, or most complicated mechanisms. i don’t like seeing robots that are more complicated than they really need to be. simplicity is key. unless you go so simple the robot isn’t effective. I think it’d be cool because then teams could go for something else for more points instead of just the normal “lift up object. dump object in bin” sort of objective. Tell me what you think! i know it sort of sounds stupid…but sort of good too.
although i do like the idea, often it is the most complicated robots that win. but there are certainly times when certain sections of a robot are overly built, to increase weight. but that kind of scoring would be very hard to judge, going against all of the rest of the awards given. all the others reward teams for building amazing robots, and it would be hard to make an award for simplistic design.
From what I recall from a quick read of the awards section of this year’s rules/advice; the judges have plenty of room to recognize and reward elegant solutions to (superficially or actually) complex problems. In other words - I think the sort of reward for simplicity that you are suggesting, already exists - In the judged awards.
On the field… well, this year, the mass of the bot does not enter into the scoring; but it does affect motor overheating, motor current draw, the likelihood of a breakdown and the ease of maintaining/reparing the machine, and the agility of the machine.
Blake
Complexity is sometimes necessary for a robot’s effectiveness, but sometimes it isn’t. I have seen overly complex robots literally rip themselves apart due to their complexity, but I have also seen extremely simple robots do the same thing for the opposite reason. an overly complex or overly simple robot is less likely to perform well in most cases. I think it’s best to let the robot’s results speak for its design.
yeah, i think it’s more stupid than good.
Remember it’s a competition, sometimes a complex robot might work better than a simple robot, other times the simple robot works better. If I remember correctly many of the robots in the finals at the VRC World Championship were somewhat complex. There were many excellent simple robots out there too, see this photo.