We’ve only seen a handful of tournaments so far, but one thing that stood out to me was how often I saw 448x style tray bots. almost every single tray bot I’ve seen has been in this style.
Judging by what I’ve seen so far, I’m anticipating 40%-60% of all teams in early season tournaments to have this kind of bot. Are there any other styles of tray bots that can counter this? What weaknesses have these bots been shown to have? How can a tray bot not done in this style stay competitive? (and I’m not talking about lifts either, you can’t really compare lifts and trays, as their method of scoring is very different.)
As far as I see it, these robots have very few weaknesses. They can create huge stacks very quickly. They can score and descore towers reliably. It certainly is a powerful design. But we can’t have found the tray bot’s meta already, there has to be a better design out there. The point of this thread is to come up with the next step for tray bots.
This might be an insane idea but I was thinking of a set of passively deploying sticks adjusted to the height of the towers to literally whack the cube out of the tower. Not sure if it would work though I don’t actually have towers yet
Another couple of things: I think their drives could be faster. I have a 400 rpm 2.75” wheel chassis right now (bout the equivalent of 265 rpm) and it did just fine with a full weight dr4b on it and a tray with four cubes in it. Also I think you could easily ratchet the two bar and tray pivot together, as both never need to run at the same time
If you can push a cube in front of the traybot as it approaches the goal zone, such that the traybot will accidentally push the cube into the goal zone, the traybot will be unable to stack on top of that cube, and that goal zone is now useless to them. Do this three times and they won’t be able to stack at all.
You’d have to be really careful around the opposing goal zones though… One false move and you get DQed. That being said, if you can pull this idea off well, you’ve got a pretty strong strategy against these bots.
These tray bots need to have a better way to prevent the cubes from falling out, In a match at the Monroe County Fair scrimmage, I was able to easily knock out all of the cubes from a tray bot multiple times during the match, with not much difficulty. Yet very little defense was played on the tray bots through out the day.
It doesn’t have to fully enclose the cubes, just have a c-channel on a hinge that covers one side of the tray, and find some way to open that hinge when the tray tilts forward. You would probably need bevel gears but I’m sure it’s possible.
This paired with a 448X style scoring mech (tray + 2b) would be amazing. I personally run an increased ratio on my base which is seen in the 1961Z reveal. 3:5 600 RPM is deadly.
These bots use the flappy roller things, so keep in mind that they are susceptible to those breaking, and if their flappy rollers go, they’re useless.
Therefore, the drivers of those bots will tend to drive as to avoid hitting the rollers on things.
Use advantage of this
