DEWBOT XI Hatboro-Horsham

Hosted by team 708 at Hatboro-Horsham High School. 1640's first qualifier for the 2015 season and our 4^th time at the Hatboro-Horsham MAR Qualifier - every year since the start of MAR.

The team got off to a good start for the season at this week 1 event. Finishing qualifications as 3^rd seed, we accepted 1403's (Cougar Robotics)gracious invitation and joined the first alliance. Together with 3637 (The Daleks) we finished as Finalists.

Sab-BOT-age also received the Quality Award (sponsored by Motorola) and a peer Creativity Award from host team 708.

The team earned 61 MAR qualifying points at Hatboro-Horsham, a new event record for the team.

Robot Evolution

The sliding drawer function of the complex dual-fork lift was disabled prior to competition, and easily-removed components supporting this function were removed. This removed the potential to score coopertition stacks. Driven by a need to control robot weight.

Hatboro was the only competition during which DEWBOT XI stacked by lifting the tote on the ground. This had not been the plan, but we were not yet reliably getting the 2^nd tote in align correctly. By stacking from the 1^st tote, we doubled the lift action (slowing the process) and lifted the top of the stack (and the RC) one tote higher. This increased the risk of losing the RC, as it was well above the guides.

At Hatboro, we sometimes purposefully scores 5-stacks w/ RC in lieu of 6-stacks. The reason for this was that we were not yet able to score two 6-stacks in a match and due to the height of the RC during stacking (because we were lifting the tote on the ground), we were at greater risk of losing the RC when stacking 6 totes. We abandoned this practice in later competitions.