Which robot concept do you believe is the most effective for Elevation? Is yours?

Zippy is actually exactly what i was thinking about when I first red this thread. i think zippy is a good representation of a well designed and built robot.:slight_smile:

One design is not necessarily better than another. A lot of strategy and technique must be employed. This has a catastrophic impact on robot success.

The real challenge is to balance what’s on your teams collective shoulders in concordance with your respected robot.

It helps if you have an amazingly fast mass intake system set up.:rolleyes:

I totally agree with cblightbulb. The bot is important, but strategy is way more important.

Most people overlook these things. Only three things matter for winning this competition.

  1. A robust bot, the type of mechanism it employs is irrelevant. Just build it incredibly well and it wont matter.

  2. A dominant strategy that you will stick with.

  3. A great driver is one of if not *the key determining factor.

Most of the best designs I saw at my competition could not handle their complex control set up at all.

A GREAT point. Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

This is what it is about. I have seen teams with great bots, but can’t pull it off in the finals.

You definately want a simple bot that your driver can handle. Im sure this happens to many teams.

Yes, simplicity is key

This is a very valid point. I have seen bots with enormous potential fall short because of small scale lapses in building or because of poor driver(s).

Scoring “willy nilly” will get you very little performance-wise, especially in such an intensive competition.

My favorite coaching phrase is “Drive with a purpose.” The driver / operator team needs to know what they need to do and go do that. So many teams spend too much time wandering around. Winning teams at our scrimmage had the plan of going goal to goal capping them. At 10 seconds they climb the ramp and park.

Yeah, this basically applies to anything. My soccer coach says it. But of course it is changed a bit - “Touch with purpose.” It always makes me think and using that phrase you are always prepared. There are none of the “Oh crap, what do I do now?” moments.