So my team is in a bit of a dilemma: we’ve built a six bar that can descore and score on the high post. However it cannot pick it off the high post flip it and rescore it like we’d hoped. We’ve already rebuilt the six bar to maximize height, so in order to achieve this ability we’d have to convert to a cascade. This would require waiting about a week for parts and then a good month if refitting everything around the cascade lift as well as building the lift itself. Our first competition will probably be in October. Should we rebuild? Or should we stick with what we have?
Driver Practice more important imo
as @dannybedro mentioned, it would more useful to get driver practice and familiarity with the current design. If you truly feel that your robot is lacking, then I suggest you go ahead and at least gather the parts and equipment needed for a cascade lift. Keep in my mind though that you don’t necessarily need to be fluent in all scoring aspects for your first tournament so regardless of the design, driver practice is key
I’d say you have enough time to rebuild if you wanted to. However, I personally wouldn’t change it at this stage, especially since you can descore and flip it on the ground if you absolutely needed to get those points. I practically guarantee you that there is going to be a better scoring option than the high posts 95% of the time, and in the other 4-5%, you’ve won the game already.
Rebuild it, and plan on doing a couple more rebuilds or major modifications during the VEX season. No robot is ever perfect. There are probably many other ways that you could improve your lift. Build a new one and make it better.
If you’re that close with your six bar, would an eight bar do? I would think that would require a lot less rebuilding. You won’t gain as much as from going from a four bar to a six bar, but you can gain a little. Is that little gain enough?
Already tried. 8 bar don’t fit
Focus on flags. Lets say you have all the caps scored on the high posts and 2 caps remaining at your colour. You will have 14 points. But if you have all 9 flags scored, you get 15 points.
Or I could you know, do both…
I agree with jrp62. You still have 3 months. 3 months is a really long time. Summer for a lot of people is just prototyping, not months of practicing with a mediocre robot. People can start building with 2 months left and still get enough practice to be good at early competitions.
If you could score quickly on high flags and also score caps on low posts, you would be in pretty good shape.
I’d recommend go for it. Summer is when most people have the most time, so spend as much time as you can building the best robot you can. Driving practice becomes important when you are pretty close to the competition, not 3 months earlier. Eventually, you will get beat by a robot that can do everything very well, so it’s important that you spend the time you have right now and build the best robot you can. I know my team isn’t resting until we have something that excels at every aspect of this game.
I’d say re-build it. Since you said that you were doing flags and caps, while you’re waiting for parts you can tune your launching mechanism and work on other parts of the robot.
I would suggest not going through with the change. I don’t think that it will be worth it to spend so long on making a design that could end up being scrapped after the first competition when you realize that a 6 bar may fit better. For the first competition, I think it is better to have a well-rounded robot in all aspects, and not just try really hard for one thing. I do not think that rebuilding a critical part of your bot is worth it if the change is solely to save a small amount of time in theoretical match play
If you’re ordering new parts anyway, why not just build both. Don’t take apart what you have yet. See if the new design works better, and use that if it does. Otherwise, keep your current design.
How tall are the high posts. I heard from one source that it was 32 inches and others that it was 36. Could somebody please clarify the height.
The official q and a has ruled that the high posts are 34” tall