These are very broad rules for designing frc robots. They are generally applicable to most situations, but are not hard fast rules.
- Having the intake and the scoring on opposite sides of the robot generally helps with autonomous
- Use wheels for manipulating game pieces wherever possible
- The less degrees of freedom, the easier the robot is to control and the less failure points there are
- Use swerve drive for maximum mobility
- Intake is the most important part of a robot usually, and the thing that you spend the most time doing is acquiring game pieces
- Simple is better than complex
- Allow yourself room to improve the robot
- Shooters need to be rigid to be reliable
- Backspin on a ball being launched increases accuracy
- The more backspin you have in a shooter, the less range you will have as that energy is being used to spin the ball rather than propel it.
- Mechanically link mechanisms when you can to make controlling them with software easier and more reliable.
- Gear your intake to be twice as fast as the robot driving
- Make your intake as grippy as possible
- Build compliance with any mechanism that exits the robot frame perimeter, OR make it bulletproof
- Compliant intakes for rigid game pieces, rigid intake for compliant game pieces