Tips for middle teams

VEX V5 General Discussion
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Here are the tips (That no one asked for) that I can give you after our first tournament of the season

Flywheel is meta
Catapult is just not worth it. The ratio of catapults to flywheels was 1:5, and for good reason. Flywheels are so much simpler than catas and the ability to place them at the speed that you want makes them clearly better. We will be changing our cata (That’s kinda sucked) to a flywheel

Wings are almost a must
Wings are the best way to make your robot 2x better. I’m shocked that only 10% of teams had them. Many just used pneumatics but the ones with motors are just so much better. We were the only team with them but I promise you being able to spin your wings so they are pointed forward is game changing. We used 5.5w motors and they worked perfectly

Elevation is actually worth it
Let me be very clear I am not telling you to get a E tier hang but just being able to get your robot off the ground is quite literally game breaking. The highest scores were in the low 100’s so being able to score typically 20-40% more points (and 30% of the time it will be 60-70%) is game breaking. And 9/10 the other team won’t have elevation. We actually lost cause the other team balanced on the middle bar (I personally think the robot was touching the ground but it was close, I should have asked them to slide paper under it to see but I wasn’t thinking at the time)

Good driver and strategy > Good robot
The driving at this tournament was just not good. Not saying I was 5x better but yk. There were a couple push bots that were bowling that went a lot compared to super complex bots, so practice your driving!

Autonomous WP is OP
There was only 1 team that could get them but because they did, they were able pick a decent team and go far in finals. I didn’t realize how crazy autonomous WP are, like if you get it twice that counts as a win. Woah. Autonomous was also pretty important, there weren’t any that were amazing but if you had it you had about a 10% higher chance of winning

Let me know if you have any thoughts about this!

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Alright. I’ll do my best

I respectfully disagree. Flywheels are nice, but the placement that a good cata/slapper can get you is very worth it for skills. That’s why top teams are using them.

I don’t know about this. Pneumatic wings are great. Especially for teams that want strong drivetrains.

I absolutely agree. I am in the process of adding a passive elevation to our cata.

Thank you for your post and good luck in the rest of the season!

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I meant middle school teams my bad btw

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On the wings portion Iam talking for middle school, 100% would rather have phematic wings but if you don’t have them motor wings are better, but they take motors.

For the cata I feel like for a middle school team flywheel is better cause it’s so much simpler. Definitely rather have a cata but instead of spending the time on that you could spend more time on driving.

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