The rest of my team and I have been debating whether we put a kicker on our robot or not for worlds. We have already made the decision, but we decided to hear your input just for fun. What say you?
*Note- We are not including kickers that can be taken off for the sake of this poll, permanenet designs only.
Looking at the meta, just make an intake. I would hot swap for skills though so that your skills would be good.
Would we be out of contention for awards if we didn’t run skills? Just a hypothetical. (Excellence is not in the question)
I have read the criteria, rubric, and key points many many times for the design award, and it mentions nothing about skills.
I’ve just been skeptical because we’ve lost design twice to teams with significantly worse notebooks and interviews than us. Maybe local judges differ from world class ones (as we won the Design Award at Ignite the northwest), but I am still anxious with not running skills.
The main thing I would recommend would be running them. This is purely based on the fact that if the judges have something to look at as a number to direct them in the right direction. Ex: if you have a 180+ prog they are probably going to want to know how you got it. At the very least skills is a good way to direct them your way. Amaze is also purely based on performance so if you want to be in the running for that you have to compete in skills. You also have to assume that judges are always watching, so say you’re running skills and they see how well your robot is built for skills for the build award. Id say it helps put your eggs in all the baskets for awards
Casual Flex… Sorry don’t have an answer tho
-Will 15800A
imo dont bother. kicker adds unnecessary weight. there’s times where matchloading is imo necessary:
honestly 80% of people will have a slapper at worlds, so you should overall not have a situation like the two i mentioned. just have wedged wings, save the weight and make it so you can go over the bar really smoothly so you can play 1 by 1 on either side of the field, no defense can keep up with it if your accel and speed is good enough (8m drive op but dont do it lol)
I would start by asking if you are playing middle school, as if so then yes use a kicker as they still do so. But more likely I’m assuming you are competing in high school in which case if you want to compete for awards I would recommend having one as from personal experience skills seems to matter. If you don’t see yourself getting an award then I would so no as you could instead use the motor for something more competitive.
That’s the route we’ve decided to take. Skills at worlds is always unpredictable and we’d like to make match play more predictable in our favor.
Yeah we’re all seniors. We are in good running for the design award and we want to make dome this year as it’s our last chance.
Not having a kicker makes that easier (in our opinions).
Then make sure you explain your choice to take the kicker off well. If you don’t, it looks kinda iffy.
Yeah if you want dome no kicker, although Ik you said not to mention it but in your situation I would highly recommend a swapping mech from kicker to something else for matches.
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.