Would it be legal to have a small tether bot to be able to detach from the main bot to help field with a second controller?
As long as there’s only one cortex and the wires have some sort of solid backing, I believe it’s legal (several teams did it during Skyrise)
Yes, it is legal. We have been planning on doing that maybe, and it would be very efficient. Have 2 robots, 18x18x9, one stacked on the other. The top would drive off and would be a wallbot, the second robot will have a shooter/kicker/puncher/slinger and could shoot much higher than the wallbot.
My team has also been thinking about making a multi bot as well. The only problem I see is getting both robots to hang.
I’m pretty sure if you were gonna do tether bots it would be a safe bet to just let your partner do the hanging. Only one robot hangs, and its a safe bet to have an alliance member who can hang in the finals.
I feel like if you can build a robot to shoot over the wallbot with half the size then the other team could easily have robots to shoot over your wallbot with a full size bot. It kind of seems like a waste
Well, the difference is that your robot is designed to shoot over the wall. Your opponents’ robots probably aren’t, especially if you have a really tall wall. Teams can’t just say, “Hey, let’s just add more power to the launcher and get a higher arc” because that screws up the entire trajectory and many shots will go over the field. The angle must also be adjusted. And lifts are even harder. “Hey guys, let’s add another stage to this robot that already barely fits in the sizing allowance.” Another option would be having a removable extension for your robot’s wall so you make it several feet taller for playoffs.
Like this, but two catapults instead? (Or a wall and a catapult)
I think that it could be good, although you need to manage your motors carefully. Having only 6 motors for a robot with a drive, launcher and potentially a powered intake may be stretching it a little bit. At the end of the day though build quality also becomes key. Similar to how some teams needed 5+ motors on a single flywheel to achieve their desired fire rate, while some could achieve that with only 3/4. I think the viability of a tether really just comes down to that at the end of the day
Okay if the wall is that tall then there is no way its going to survive getting a 2 pound cube launched at it. The walls are going to tip and break, 1815Delta wants to make a wallbot that is supposed to rise above a 24? inch fence, spread out 12 feet, while still managing to have enough support not to get knocked over by a heavy cube or well placed star. Not to mention the fact that they want to do it with only half the space allotted. If they can miraculously make a robot like that without falling over. Then another team should easily be able to fit another section into there lift for a full sized bot or change the angle on their catapult. I just think that a wallbot is going to end up in pieces, which would not be good.
A wallbot also must deploy almost instantly, or else the stars knocked off the fence will jam in front of the wallbot during autonomous.
Also, tethers are a lot harder than they look. They make it harder to move and alliance partners can get stuck on them. I know from experience.
A tether volleyball net deployment. Depending upon the opponents catapult abilities, you could make a net to block their shots.
Grab the stars on one side of the lift, blocking net on the other side. Then split to make the net cover the entire field! But since you can’t attach to the wall, you may tip over. Unless you expand back as well…
But the 2 pound cube is a killer!!! Get some force on that puppy to defeat the net bot. Probably not considered intentional destruction of the other robot. Remember it is always an offensive game and typically ruled as so.
Yes! Exactly the same concept!
If I were to explain further more about this subject though, I might spoil our design, so all I’ll say is that there will be two drivetrains, one can be H-Drive, another can be X-Drive. The H-Drive will be the wallbot and could drive with two motors, the X-Drive will have 4 motors for easy pickup for the stars.
The robots will be 18L x 18W x 9H and stacked. The wallbot would run on pneumatics that would activate a wall by rubber band elastics.
The shooterbot will use 4 motors to shoot.
I think it might be possible. But I think you run into a few problems.
- the tether. It can grt suck in other robots, on objects, etc… You also cant hang if you have a tether dragging around.
- hanging. It is very difficult with that much mass, weight, and size.
- space. 18x18 is tough to fit 2 good robots. Vexu it might be more practical.
- objects. The scoring objects are very large this year so it will be harder for a smaller bot to handle them.
Just remember every year (Except nbn) I think i have seen tether bot thrown out as an idea but not often does it become a practical reality. I feel like they are so much harder to build and work well than the seem at first.
Tether bots could be great for this year just because of the fact of no robot to robot contact with the opposite alliance. I could definetely imagine a modified version of arty the dual robot from skyrise to be able to have one robot hang and push stars under the fence while another gets cubes and stars over the fence
Both parts would have to hang.
It would be cool to have 4 motor drive and 2 motor launcher/intake on each robot with your partner controller controlling the second bot with them tethered together…
Noted
They don’t have to hang, they said one robot only. Just be lucky your ally has a lift 
There will have to bee a robot who plays the field until the last and the tether bot probably could that very well especially for last second scoring or pushing into the near zone.