Hi, this is the first year of v5 for everyone in the team I am in, and we have seen a lot of people telling us that we should just copy, or very slightly modify a more experienced team, such as ACE’s, robot. However, since the game came out, we have been developing our own robot, which does not bear much overall similarity to the META. It still uses a cascade lift, but one rigged much differently to most teams. We have much more time until our first comps, as for various reasons, we can only start comps in late October-early November. While our current design does have some weight issues on the lift, we are working towards a solution. We genuinely think that this design could rival the meta (it can do everyting ACE’s robot and intakebot can do, and more), but development will certainly be challenging to bring the concept to viability.
Despite this, our team is very dedicated to getting this robot working, and we really want to be able to go to competitions with a robot which we thought of every part of this. However, we are aware that many, more experienced teams have told us to desist and go with META. Do you think we should do this, or keep trying to follow our path?
Okay, so I want to start off by saying that not only first year teams copy high level teams/the meta. If y’all end up copying the meta that’s totally normal and expected something that my team couldn’t really comprehend our first year we thought we had to make something original.
Now I would like to contradict what I just said by saying you don’t have to copy the meta. You can make the meta (theoretically anyway). But seriously, if y’all think you can do better than the meta then try it, especially with tournaments so far a way there really isn’t any reason to not experiment. The thing you guys really need to do is be aware and make your own choices. If you have all of the information then you could trust yourselves to make the right decision. You need to stay realistic and ask yourselves the pros and cons of building a meta bot vs your own design. Maybe you want the most competitive bot possible and you think the meta bot is best for that or maybe you just want to have build your own design because it customized for your needs. I don’t know what the right bot to build is for your team, that’s something you will have to figure out for yourselves.
So, basically all of this to say don’t do something because someone told you to do it, but keep it in mind and think about it and make an educated decision. And above everything trust your work but don’t expect it to always be the best and be open it to being garbage and be open to it being the new meta.
First off which region are you? If it’s Washington or cali then you’re going to face a lot of competition from teams that build and improve the best designs possible. However especially early season in any region, and some historically weaker regions through the season you can succeed with an “off meta” design as long as you document and tune it well. As long as it preforms around the level of “meta” bots then your fine. It’s about if it performs well instead of if it’s a meta design or not
In my opinion, the meta of every game is simply the design that is the easiest to win with. It was far easier to win with a lever bot than a basket bot in push back because levers were generally faster than baskets at scoring and descoring, but high level teams were capable of building baskets that were fast enough to compete with levers. The same goes for hooks and hoods respectively in high stakes.
In VEX, different designs are going to have different advantages. Generally, non-meta robots have an inherent advantage in one aspect of the game, but have inherent disadvantages in every other aspect. Teams that are skilled enough to overcome the disadvantages can make extremely competitive robots, which is why off-meta robots are so appealing for more skilled teams.
If your team has designed a robot you think will work well, then by all means build it!
The lessons you learn from developing your own solution will far outlast any competitive advantage from copying a ‘proven’ design.
I would also note that simply copying the meta could cause problems with rule <G4> (All work must represent the skill level of the Students on the Team).