Our team needs driving practice. But all of the prototypes we’ve built don’t have towers of any sort right now. So we don’t have much that can pick up cubes. I’ve tried practicing using a claw, but picking up a cube at a time is not sufficient for a strategy. Are there any other ways which we can get driving practice?
Just chassis drive practice is huge. Practice that until you get your subsystems mounted, and then keep practicing over and over. Make an obstacle course, practice with old field parts, etc. Maybe try pushing cubes around with just your drive?
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Using a simple 1 cube claw is also good, it won’t help with strategy, but itll make sure when you actually use a real intake, you’ll nail the cube placement every time
You can also build a simple chain bar or something and practice placing cubes with the claw in random places (chairs, tables, in boxes).
Just chassis drive practice is huge
This. Thisthisthis. Your robot needs to be an extension of your body. Programmers should make sure that several functions are automated and lifts have good motion profiles & target positions/heights. However a poor driver will render it useless.
Scrimmage, even against another simple pushbot playing defense. Work with your drive team to learn to listen and communicate effectively. Drive laps around the field. Practice stacking for hours. Come up with names for the cups, and have your coach give you a cup and a color, and you have to empty the cup and fill it with your color block asap (assuming you can get some game pieces).
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That’s what I’ve trying and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere with just pushing cubes around. Without a subsystem, I can’t actually pick any cubes up.
As others have said, chassis practice is super important. If you have field tiles use them. Put some obstactles down to resemble the towers, and drive around them; or make another robot that tries to push you and practice avoiding them. It’s best to do this with more or less the same drive you plan to use on the full robot. Consider adding some weights to mimic the weight of whatever the rest of your bot will be plus the cubes it’s carrying. Although imo your priority should probably be building a bot that can manipulate cubes/operate how you want it to in competition; why don’t you build something closer to your full robot before worrying so much about driver practice?
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