Wow, where to start?
There is no “correct design for the robot for this challenge”. Every
team designs their own robot tailored to what they think they need and to their
approaches to solving the missions of the robot game. If there was one
“correct design”, there wouldn’t be much point to a “robot design” award would
there? It is true that many first-time teams start with a robot like the
“Tri-Bot”, whose instructions came with the robot, or some other design found on
the internet, but they only use that as a starting point. Do a quick
YouTube search on FLL and you will see an incredible variety of robots even
within a single competition season.
Building a variety of basic robot designs that are solid platforms to work
from is a skill – and one that can be developed. In the offseason, have
team members build a variety of designs that they find and ones that they make
up. Help them analyze them for stability, hardiness, access,
center-of-gravity, traction, etc. This will build a skill set they can use
next year to great advantage.
Regarding the battery pack... It is a good idea to build a robot that
provides easy access to the battery pack (even if it involves removing a couple
of pins to do it). You should strive to build a robot where you don’t
block access to the battery pack power jack, the sensor and motor ports, or the
USB port. Some people swear by using rechargeable AA batteries and swap
sets of them frequently so they never have to wait for a charge. Our teams
usually leave the LEGO rechargeable battery packs in the device constantly and
just plug them in when they aren’t using them.
Stuart Roll
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 12:01 AM
Subject: [VADCFLL-L] Robot to Build?
Newby here with a basic question. We have the board and all the items
built so making progress. My son built the robot from the instruction
manual that came with the kit, 9797 in the lower right hand cover of the
instructions. Then he decided to take it entirely apart to take the
batteries out to replace with the rechargeable pack (not sure if it was
necessary to take all apart but that was what he decided to do). Before he
rebuilds it wanted to make sure the correct design for the robot for this
challenge was the 9797 build instructions. Also, with whatever design we
are supposed to build, are we better off with the rechargeable battery pack
installed?
Thanks a lot for any input we can get on this,
Scott James
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