I do not really know where to begin, so I’ll start by giving some context. I go to my State Championship on March 6th which is about 2.5 weeks away. Our team has had a three-stage traybot (9 cube capacity) with flip down intakes for a while now. However, our driver wants to convert to a two stage with a slide in order to be able to play defense on unprotected stacks going up more easily. In addition, he wants to have walls on the side of the tray which we were not able to do with the 3 stage flip out. Our deploy with the three stage was also sometimes wack (3rd stage wouldn’t deploy but 2nd would). However, I am worried that with the sizing constraints our cube capacity will drop to 8 with a 2 stage + slide. However, I find that the defense is not really worth it (I’m in a less defensive state). However, walls could easily be added and deploy could be fixed if we did triangle/different type of deploy style. Any thoughts or feedback would be much appreciated.
it really all depends as far as strats. our state isn’t as competitive however it will be nice having a large stacking robot if it is successful and consistent. if you drop big stacks of like 11 then that’s where having a robot score 8 consistently will step in. not to mention defense is not as developed in our state but several teams have it in mind. it depends on the capability on your driver as well as build quality tbh.
also you have to take into consideration of the type of robots that will be at state and the level of competition there is.
Play defense, that is what has won my team many matches. However from what it sounds like, a total tray rebuild is not a good idea within this time frame. Learn how to play defense with the robot you have instead of trying such a big change this late in the game.
Thanks for the advice. Update: We have settled on something that will do perfectly for us.
There are alternatives to having walls to prevent the cubes from falling out (due to defense).
Sorry if it seems to be reviving an quite old thread…
If you look at the video closely (around 0:37 to 0:48) - 8059Z and F used what we called the deep-tray concept. So instead of using walls at the side to build up, we “built down” .
Pretty effective in preventing the cubes from falling out, and they were all 3-stage+ robots.
Dont forget tipping over can make you a wall.
Also long trays are actually great for defence, you can sort of joust other bots with it if its sturdy enough
Long trays can also descore cubes out of towers if they are nested in the right way 
If I am not wrong, OP is referring to building “walls” on the tray, to prevent the cubes from falling out.
Not about making the robot into a wallbot…
Oh!
Well in that case, use lexan walls! Since they were flexible, you can easily nest the walls within each other