My team is looking at build a clawbot look a like. (The only thing we would add on, is a extendable arm). Does anyone see a problem with this or a better solution?
Any help would help. Thanks
With a simple robot, or clawbot you can’t really go wrong.
For new teams and also early in the season, you could be easily be a third pick by a high ranking team if you have good autonomous and as well as driving, however you are unlikely to be an alliance captain at this point in time of the skyrise season.
Heres some inspiration: VEX Skyrise Auckland NZ #8 event 7682E robot skills run 34pts - YouTube
I recommend you try an 8 bar lift as you’ll be able to get good height out of it while being a simpler build.
the video u have posted (VEX Skyrise Auckland NZ #8 event 7682E robot skills run 34pts - YouTube) is what we are thinking of doing. any thoughts?
It’s a good place to start. I’ve just noticed you live in Vancouver as well.
Vancouver competitions have had a few wingus dingus clones, 3 to be exact.
In order to be competitive you’ll have to make the arm reach higher.
Or you can try to build an 8 bar robot, which will be easier for a new team to pull off than say a scissor.
Not quite true. 7682E is still highly competitive and he’s recently completed a rebuild with speed improvements. Interestingly he has no immediate plans to change the reach of his robot so this weekend’s Auckland event will perhaps be a good measure of how well little robots can actually perform in Skyrise.
I would estimate robot skills for 7682E will increase to around 40-43 points but we’ll see I guess.
There’s a lot to be said for keeping it simple.
Quoted for the truth. I wanted to personally thank you all from W & D personally for posting your videos for helping back a poor ole mentor’s words of wisdom. Two of our teams began the year trying to make a six bar with a roller dump intake work, but unfortunately they overbuilt and both produced two of the worst robots our team has put out. (3 point in eliminations with two fully functional robots 
) Fortunately they were shown how a simple arm robot with a wrist was able to work successfully in competition due to your videos. They ran with it and upset our best team due to them hitting autonomous during our last competition. Were our higher scoring robots both missed and that bonus allowed the simple robot alliance to win by 2 point upsetting the number one seed for a finalist spot and ticket to State. I’m not saying not to try your hardest, but for teams with less experience having a simple jointed wrist robot that has a consistent auto with lots and lots of driver practice might not seed high, but it’s an elimination nightmare as a second round pick our even an alliance captain that can scout really well.
I am part of team 9181C (this post). I would like to mention that during our most recent competition, we were first for half the time day but dropped (thanks to horrible aliiance partners) and dropped to eighth.
http://www.robotevents.com/re-vrc-14-2316.html
I’m assuming you had a claw bot correct?
I still stand by my point that in B.C. a simple arm bot will not make it as an alliance captian.
If you want to get personal, I played 2 1v2 matches that competition.
All I was trying to say was that it does indeed work as a viable lift. It does have potential to help a team achieve a spot of an alliance captain. That’s all.
if you want to get ‘regional’ may I ask what makes the BC area tougher that NZ.
I don’t think he was. BC is known as one of the tougher regions. It’s just what happens when you get several strong teams competing in one area. If you want to look into it more Nathan released a ‘how teams from different regions did at worlds’ page on his database. VexDB | Extras | Worlds Region/Country Rankings
As Jason said earlier in the thread 7682E is very competitive here and it would not suprise me if that robot does achieve those skills scores. However, the thing I believe makes them so good is how fast the robot is at everything which is helped by how well its driven. It’s come to the point where a clawbot has to be that little bit more special to stay competitive, especially at the higher ends of the game. I’m not saying that a clawbot can’t be competitive (look at VEX U Worlds last season where one the 24" robots was 2 clawbots tethered together) I just feel that they should have something a little extra added to them.
Thanks and well done advancing the State champs. Yesterday 7682E ranked 5th and was chosen by rank #1 8757B. They dominated the eliminations however that said a 20 point swing from the autonomous bonus could have changed things but together these 2 junior teams were pretty solid performers.
Unsurprisingly there is more to it than just making a simple arm with wrist pivot but if a team puts enough time and effort into making the robot fast and reliable along with plenty of drive practise they’ll do well. If you’re a simple robot without uber skyrise capability make sure you can score high points during auton from the low post start tile because that’ll be what swings the auton bonus your way.
Good luck and we’re happy to have demonstrated that keeping it simple can produce good results.