Multiple bases? I gotta see a video of this
@QuantumRobotics2019
What in the heck?! As far as vex goes, that is by far the weirdest robot I’ve seen. But I like it
It sucked for everyone else in AZ to compete against them in TU 
Why? Cause they took up like a quarter to half of the field? I remember watching a TU video of a bot that at the last minute, turned into a wall bot that their autonomous would make them go forward, and quickly shoot out this long wall that spanned across like the entire field. It was amazing until it broke.
In practice they shut the field down for both opponents, and with 1471A with them, they cruised all the way to state Champs.
The stats seem to tell a different story (vexDB). They were ranked dead last in the 2014 Arizona state champship with a record of (0-6-0) but managed to get on the alliance with the #1 seed then cruised to the state championship. There must be a good backstory to this one!
It’s not uncommon for a purely defensive design to be ineffective in the qualification round (because they have to rely on their partner for scoring.) However, once elimination alliances are being formed, they can easily be the best 3rd team member, if they are paired with two high-scoring partners.
Interesting! I’m sure scouting is very important for teams like that. They would really have to sell themselves.
Or, if your school has multiple teams, you could hope to have one in a position to pick the other. Pretty risky, due to the alliance selection rules.
With first hand experience with 929W and their 2 drivers, I think it is possible to be successful but they have been on the same team and known each other for a long time… they also practiced and communicated non stop… They would usually know what needed to be done at the beginning of a match… with a few exceptions… But overall i think that 1 driver can dominate, The driver gets more practice and gets to adjust to the match easily… which are both key… I think if you have two both drivers have to be extremely flexible with what they do… For example, Nothing but net, the intake/ flywheel guy may not be able to predict where the driver is going to go to grab balls or shoot so that person will have to constantly adjust to the drive base driver… If the 2 drivers couldn’t communicate well than it would just render the team useless… I think for this year, once again a single driver will be dominant.
I think two drivers would be ideal in the case where your arm has multiple functions… but if your a specific bot per say for example you only lift, i think it would be unnecessary for you to have two drivers.
Sorry for bumping an old thread - only realized after I made this post how old this was. Hopefully this is of some value.
I think the default should be 2 drivers, and that you try to consolidate to 1 driver based on various factors.
Lots of the inherent criticism of two driver setups here assume things like a lack of driver practice, poor communication between the drivers, etc. With practice, many of these “downsides” to either 2 drivers or 1 driver are eliminated, and it comes down to human limitations. The dexterity, mental clarity, etc. needed for 1 driver to manage several different mechanisms is tough regardless of the amount of practice involved.
Cases where 1 driver works well:
- Sufficient automation of other subsystems is present that robot functions just use button presses and closed loop control does the rest. Example: A dumper robot with a passive forklift intake. If there is a simple “flip up / flip down” toggle button for the intake, and another “flip up / flip down” toggle button for the dumper, the controls are simple enough that it’s feasible for one driver to do it all.
- A robot has exclusively simple mechanisms that do not require precision operation. Consider last year, a robot with just a drive base and an intake that could spit balls in the low goal. If the only manipulator button is “turn the intake on”, the second driver doesn’t really do anything.
Even if you go with 2 drivers, that doesn’t mean you can’t give your primary driver limited control over manipulator functions. Maybe over time you’ll discover it’s better to let 1 driver do most of the work. It’s a lot harder to go from 1 to 2 mid season than 2 to 1.