So already we’ve seen two big groups of designs this season- bots with lifts and end effectors such as claws and passive intakes, and bots I will refer to as tray stackers that have no lift but instead build their stack from the bottom and then deposit it. Personally I think that an alliance with one of each design would win, but what are your thoughts on which of these two designs will dominate?
Are tray stackers able to build on pre existing stacks? Like a stack of three or four cubes?
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Not with current technology no, though I could see some coming up with a way to do that
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Idk why people don’t just make DR4B trays
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because are you really going to build a dr4b capable of lifting 9 cubes and a tray with he current motor limit?
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okay, because currently, a tray bot would be very good if the driver is able to completely fill up the tray and stack it without the stack falling over because if the stack falls over so it is a stack of three or four, they can’t add on to it without restarting it. But with lit boys, some can and some can’t stack on previous stacks, for the lifts that can’t, they would have to be able to carry a lot of cubes at once but tray bots will probably be able to carry more at once. And then for lifts that can, though they can place on pre existing stacks, the factors of how high they can reach, how many cubes they can hold at once, and speed come into play. I feel like depending on common defense strategies that are developed, some of the designs we have been seeing will become less popular depending on if you can’t gather enough cubes for your tray or if the other teams defense makes it difficult to either gather all your cubes in one go ( such as knocking cubes off your tray) or make it so it’s not worth making a lift where you repeatedly have to go back and gather cubes and then stack because of how intense defense is and it takes too long to repeatedly get two, three, or four cubes at a time. So it might just come down to how defensive strategies impact the pps each lift is capable of achieving and how these strategies effect the effectiveness of each bot.
You also have to keep in mind what would do well with an alliance partner, a tray would be really good with a lift that can stack on pre existing stacks because while the tray is filling up, Lift bot can play defense and then they can switch but two trays together may not do so well if the stacks they make fall over. The two lifts together may do well but it might take longer for them to make high stacks compared to tray bots, especially an alliance of two tray bots or a tray and lift bot.
But of course, I forgot the most important design, the wall boy. An alliance with a wall not would have to have a very very durable wall bot and its alliance partner would have to be faster and better than the other alliance.
I believe a alliance that had a tray bot that can hold lots of cubes and a lift that can stack really high on pre existing such as a dr4b would do very well for the reasons I listed above.
P.S. (Sorry if I contradicted myself in this)
EDIT: pps is the points per second,
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I have to agree that a pair will Dominate. Generally I’ve seen that in circumstances like this, where you have to decide between two big designs, the best solution is to pick one and pair with the other. For example, in itz a big design choice was active or passive intake. What won worlds? An active passive pair. Or in turning point, d catapult or flywheel/puncher. What won worlds? A flywheel and d catapult pair. So I could be wrong, but I think a dr4b- tray stacker pair will be the best
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If you lift 6 cubes at once it’s more reasonable. The difference that our team focused on was which intake method would be more effective, rather than if we wanted to stack on preexisting stacks. You can put both of these intake designs on a lift, and still make them each hold 6 cubes at once.
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True, but a good intake type should be able to stack on preexisting stacks, use as few motors as possible, and still be fast.
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Who said 9 at once? It has the DR4B so it can make loads of 4-5.
And yes, I would make a dr4b that lifts 9 cubes with the current motor limit if that’s what I was making ^^
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Well…the op tray stacker kind of says that in order to match it’s capacity you have to lift nine. But yeah, I think that DR4B’s will have to stick to like six max if they want to lift effectively. Though I’d love to be proven wrong.
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You might be able to if you use the 36:1 motors and a 7:1 gear ratio on the lift.
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My thing with a DR4B being more effective than a tray stacker. A tray stacked while putting in 8-9 cubes at once, can only do it once. Whereas a DR4B can only do mybe 6-7 cubes can throw down that stack and then come back with like 4 or 5 more cubes if their skills permit and stack those on top
Just my theory tho…
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How many motors does that lift take though? A tray usually takes three (1 for the tilter, 2 for the rollers to push the cubes upward). If a lift takes 2 and the tray takes 3 you’re suddenly running two motor drive.
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You could always make the intake with 1 motor.
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lifts aren’t as efficient as trays. you’re needlessly using energy lifting when you don’t need to. and even if you can only make 3 stacks of 9-10 with a tray, that’s still amazing. you shouldn’t need to make more than that, at least as far as early season goes.
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You’d have to torque up your intake then to push the cubes up the tray.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to make a dr4b tray stacker, I’m just saying by the time you torque everything down and use all those motors, it’d be better to use a dr4b with a passive intake or claw.
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I think the factor that might give the dr4b stackers the edge is the towers, since some of the tray stacker designs I’ve seen have no way of descoring cubes. But I suspect that in the early season, tray stackers will dominate because of how easily the rollers can pick up cubes compared to a dr4b reverse stacker.
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tray stacker should be able to descore from tower actually.
for 8059A design, we only made use of 7 motors… the team actually made a descorer, just that they didnt have time to think of a way to mount it thats all 
but it is definitely possible for tray stacker design to descore or even score multiplier effectively
.
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Our passive reverse stacker can pick up cubes fairly easily. I don’t think towers are going to be an issue for rollers though, because as you mentioned, the rollers can pick up a cubes quickly, so if an opponent places a cube in a tower, the roller bot will be the first to capitalize on it.
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