Dang it feels good to be a Dozer

“Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dozer (known unofficially to some as Plowie) has been a staple in Havabanana FRC Game Animations since the beginning.  Dozer is the robot on the blue alliance with four or six high grip wheels and a plow.  He’s often considered to be a loveable rookie built kitbot, and he always seems to fall off a ramp, or get knocked in the plow by a ball and reminds teams to build robust robots.

If you were to ask most teams to rank the capabilities of the robot they’ll be finishing in six weeks, almost everyone would say that they are going to field a more competitive robot than Dozer.  As it turns out though, for the past three years Dozer has almost certainly been an elimination worthy robot!  In 2012 he was worth about half the median alliance score, in 2011 he outscored the median alliance, and in 2010 he was worth about 2/3 of the median alliance score.  Going back even further Dozer has had some good and some bad years, but that is left as an exercise to the reader.

(note that the Championship and District Championships are excluded, and we are looking at only qualifying alliance scores)

The Life And Times of Dozer: It’s a Hard Knock Life
As Researched by Preeminant Dozer Historian Chris Pinecone

2012
Not a banner year for Dozer, as he starts with two balls, but does not score them. Dozer fails to triple balance, but he does pull off a successful coop balance
Worth: 10 pts
Median Alliance Score: 17 pts 
Mean Alliance Score: 19 pts 

2011
Again Dozer can’t score in autonomous or teleop, but our intrepid hero launches a first place minibot.
Worth: 30 pts 
Median Alliance Score:  22 pts
Mean Alliance Score: 28 pts 

2010
A game tailor made for Dozer to excel.  He is shown scoring one point, but another is implied.
Worth: 2 pts
Median Alliance Score: 3 pts
Mean Alliance Score: 3.2 pts

These data feed back to our point that FRC robots just don’t score many points.  If a box on wheels with a plow scores more points than a significant percentage of team build robots — why not try and build something along the same lines and improve your performance?  In the 2013 animation, Dozer scores 1 point – how do you think that will compare to the median alliance this year?