Beatty and Kingman

[JAlpert]

There were two teams that seemed to show a lot of promise - Beatty (71) and Kingman (60). I know they competed at SVR and MMR, and I was wondering how they stacked up.

1) Did Beatty consistently get 3 goals and control them?
2) Was Beatty impossible to push around?
3) How fast was Beatty to the goals?

4) How fast was Kingman to the goals?
5) Could Kingman consistently control two goals?
6) Could Kingman consistently lift two goals?
7) How hard was it to push Kingman around?

Thanks,

I couldnt see the webcast, but i hope the footage is up on the web soon.

Jeff Alpert
Team 469

[Perseus]

I think that Beatty proved its consistency in elimination rounds.

[Jay Lundy]

Kingman is an extremely fast team, and unstoppable if you let them grab two goals. There were many times in the qualification rounds when they grabbed two goals, and then just plowed their way straight through 2-3 robots and a goal without slowing down. Also many times teams would be latched onto kingman's goals and when kingman started moving towards the goal zone their turret would rotate as they moved so that the robot would end up pulling at a wierd angle and being dragged across the field.

They ended up ranked 8th since grabbing 2 goals is not the greatest qualifying strategy because they get too many points (though they did really well and were even ranked 2nd at one point) and we chose them and 359 in our alliance. Unfortunately, kingman had some problems latching in the playoffs, but they still did well. They also have a tether that they drop off at the beginning of the match and it stays in the entire match.

I am sure that by nationals they will have perfected their latching and they will definately do well.

Oh and just to answer the questions directly:
4. At their fastest they can get to the goal in 1/2 - 1 seconds.

5. Yes, except in playoffs where they were having a few difficulties.

6. Yes, every time they got the goals they lifted them.

7. When they had the goals, impossible. Without the goals, very difficult. I still remember one instance when a team anchored in front of them so their frame was on the ground and kingman pushed them all the way across the field without a problem.

[Jay Lundy]

Oh and does anyone have any pictures of beatty grabbing 3 goals?

A movie would be even better.

[Andy Grady]

You know a team is good when they grab onto two goals, another robot latches onto one of them, then the team decides to drag the goals and that other robot to the HP station to get loaded up with balls, and then goes all the way back to the goal zone...without as much as a sweat! Ford Kingman was definately the most powerful two goal grabber I have seen in the competitions so far this year, I would love to see how they would fare against Beatty's walker.
Peace,
Andy Grady

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally posted by JAlpert
[B]There were two teams that seemed to show a lot of promise - Beatty (71) and Kingman (60). I know they competed at SVR and MMR, and I was wondering how they stacked up.

1) Did Beatty consistently get 3 goals and control them?
2) Was Beatty impossible to push around?
3) How fast was Beatty to the goals?


I would say beatty consistantly pushed three goals around. There were a few teams that figured out how to get around that though. Beatty was indeed impossible to push. There is no stopping that robot - wherever it wants to go, it goes. We timed Beatty to the goals and in the match we timed it took them 3.5 seconds to get to the goals. Once they had a goal, there was no getting it away from them. That's what I saw! Any other questions/comment/whatever?

- Katie

[Don]

Beatty was indeed impossible to push. There is no stopping that robot

I wouldn't be so sure about this. Even though I have yet to see anyone push them around. Just wait till West Michigan. ;)
There was something strange that I noticed about their robot. Whenever someone bumped or took one of the side goals before hammond got a hold of it, it took hammond even longer to grab the other side goal. Is this just me or is there some explanation to this?

[Jim S]

I would like to thank team 71 and team 519 for there help at MMR.
beatty has a great robot, but what you can not forget is they are also smart. I believe they could win the grand rapids regional with
a average robot , also they are great people.

Jim Schaddelee
team 107

[Andy Grady]

Let me just hit on this one more time...I REALLLLY want to see Ford/Kingman vs. Beatty....if this happens at nationals, someone please tape it for me!!! That is a match I do not want to miss!

[Matt D]

At the Silicon Valley Regional, kingman was averaging 2.5-3.5 seconds to the near and center goals.
They also won the incredible play award for grabing 2 goals,
filling them with 9 human player balls, pushing 2 robots across the field,
lifting the goals up, and spinning them around their bot.

I scouted them several times and timed them with a stopwatch.

Thanks teams 60 and 359 for making such a stong alliance with us.

[Heather 45]

I would like to congratulate teams who won at MMR. Although I would have liked to win, it wasn't our teams time to win and I can't wait until nationals. I would also like to say thank you to Beatty for chanting my teams name when we won an award. I know it meant alot to hear that from them.

[JAlpert]

The third reply to this thread read that Kingman "at their fastest reached the goals in 0.5-1s." According to some basic physics, their acceleration to the goals from rest to 25 feet is 200ft/s/s, and their velocity when they reach the goals is 100ft/s. Their average velocity is thus 50ft/s. I think the original timing must have been done with a sundial or with the "one-thousand one" approach. Just kidding. But seriously, i got pretty scared when i first read the numbers, and I wanted to make sure we weren
t going to get smoked to the goals. Thanks for your input.

Jeff Alpert
Team 469

[Jay Lundy]

Ok so I was exaggerating :p

Listen to Matt, he was one of our scouters and he had the stopwatch.

Though I remember watching them one time and it really looked like it only took them one second to get there...

Also in your calculations you are assuming they accelerate the entire time when really most robots can reach max speed in 2-3 feet. So doing some calculations, to reach 20 ft/s in 3 ft thats an acceleration of 66.7 ft/s/s and takes .3 s, then to reach the goal at 20 ft/s that is now 22 ft away takes 1.1 s. In total thats about 1.4 s. Now I really do think they can go 20 ft/s at their max maybe even faster so it might be possible.

Note: I did say "at their fastest," in the situation I am talking about they really flew out of the gate. Most of the time they take longer because its harder to latch at such speeds.

[Stephanie]

My team (668) went up against kingman in our first match at SVR, and are proud to say that we were successful at preventing them from spinning the goals, jk ;) our goal arm was good and bent up, and had to be replaced and reinforced before our next match. they have a strong, fast and unique robot.
at one point, i heard one of the other scouts for my team say that they could do 17 fps to get to the goal, and 2 fps once they had them. i'll tell you, they were strong! they pushed our bot around like one of the soccerballs ;) i'm not sure i saw another bot there that could beat them to the middle goal (there's a strategy trick for you...).

[Matt Reiland]

I did see a little mean robot 'Cerebral' or something like that take the center goal and team 60 and place them back against the operator station then the battery connection or breaker went. For those first few seconds the 'Cerebral' bot showed they had what it takes for speed and power. I think come Nationals when the full mix of superfast and superstrong robots combine you will see some matches unlike anything we have seen yet. Many of the strategies so far in grabbing 2 or even 3 goals involves getting there first or spending the rest of the 2 minutes towing one or 2 to get the other one. Effective blocking and keeping a robot inbetween your goals and the opposing robots gripper throws a real curve on things. And be prepared for not only a whole bunch more tethers but also some 'tether manipulators'

[aman]

I have a few questions about Beatty:
1) Do they have wings made out of PVC
2) How much damage do they get from their wings
3) Someone mentioned that there were some robots that were able to stop Beatty. What did they do to stop them?
4) Does anyone have pics or video of them?
Thanks
Aman

[Ricky Q.]

I'll do my best here:

1) Yes their wings are PVC

2) I dont think their robot gets damaged, because no one really got to give a direct impact to their wings, because they always got to a goal fast.

3) We (Team #269) beat them twice, once in the Qualifications, and once in the Semifinals. In the quals we got one goal while they grabbed 2 and just loaded it with balls, in the semi finals they had two again, but we somehow ended up dragging both out of their zone and into our home zone, I'm waiting for the video to be put up of that one. Check it out if you can.

N.E.W. Apple Corps (#93) beat them in the qualifications in a great match, they just beat them to the center goal and rammed it, Beatty ended up being stuck on the lower edge of the goal and their feet couldn't walk, it was a great match. But I believe they fixed their robot so it won't happen again.

[aman]

Thanks for the info. It was very helpful. By the way, do where i could get pics of them. I looked in Beatty Pics thread but I didn't find any URLS. Thanks again
Aman

[Ricky Q.]

There are some in the Gallery on this site under Regionals->Motorola Midwest Regional

[aman]

The only url i saw on that thread was www.sigmat.com/steam.html which wasnt working

[aman]

I was looking in the wrong place.
THanks
Aman

[Ricky Q.]

MMR Pics (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pictures.php?s=&galleryid=47&perrow=4&trows=3&direction=DESC&sort=date)

There ya go

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally posted by aman
I have a few questions about Beatty:
1) Do they have wings made out of PVC
2) How much damage do they get from their wings
3) Someone mentioned that there were some robots that were able to stop Beatty. What did they do to stop them?
4) Does anyone have pics or video of them?
Thanks
Aman

1) Yes, Beatty's wings are made out of PVC
2) One of their wings cracked in the qualification match we (team #93) beat them in. Again, like Ricky said, Beatty ended up being stuck on the lower edge of the goal and they couldn't crawl. They said that they fixed that though. I saw a couple of times that the arm looked like it might have been damaged, but I didn't see the match before hand - I only saw them wheeling it back into the pits.
3) The way we stopped them was already mentioned... We rammed into the center goal so they couldn't get it. The second time we were allied with 269 so... the answer lies above ;)
4) Nope, sorry - no videos or pictures!!

- Katie

[Jnadke]

It wasn't that they couldn't get it, it's that their springs had so much bounce when they dropped down. We rammed that goal at full speed and it flew back several feet. They wound up landing on top of it and couldn't go anywhere...

They are a very good team at what they do. I can't wait to see them compete at nationals and see many other robots compete with/against them.

..in the semi finals they had two again, but we somehow ended up dragging both out of their zone and into our home zone, I'm waiting for the video to be put up of that one. Check it out if you can.

That match beatty had only 1 goal and stuck with it. They started out on the side by the rail and could only get that one. Their alliance partner got the other two into scoring zone. Fortunately towards the end our alliance (201 and 269) was about to drag the robot and the 2 goals into our scoring zone.

The other match where you beat them with only 1 goal I saw... that was a good match...

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally posted by Jnadke
It wasn't that they couldn't get it, it's that their springs had so much bounce when they dropped down. We rammed that goal at full speed and it flew back several feet. They wound up landing on top of it and couldn't go anywhere...


Nice strategy - put something under them before they settle. Wouldn't be too hard for them to fix, though.

[aman]

Another ?
Has any team tried to push Beatty on their side or pull them in so they can not get all 3 goals into their zone. How successful were these teams in trying to pull Beatty?

[Amy Beth]

Beatty vs. Kingman--Beatty would win. Kingman has just about one of the most impressive robots i've seen this year, but the skill of their drivers leaves something to be desired. Still, after another regional to practice at, i dread running into them at nationals.

[Jay Lundy]

Does Beatty transfer the wieght of the goals into their robot?

Has any team that does transfer the weight ever tried to outpush them head-on?

Did any of the strong pushing teams ever try to push against one of Beatty's wings, and if so, did it break, did it cause the robot to turn, or did it have no effect?

I'm kinda surprised that arms made of PVC can withstand that much torque since the lever arm is so long.

I guess I really need to see some videos, if anyone can get some up asap that would answer so many questions.

Soap seems to have videos. I'll check those out.

Oh, I just watched one of the matches, and I realize how mistaken I've been. I thought Beatty's armed stayed out, I had no idea they folded in once they latched. Now I see how PVC is strong enough...

[aman]

Response to:
I'm kinda surprised that arms made of PVC can withstand that much torque since the lever arm is so long.

[aman]

Response to Jay Lundy:
"I'm kinda surprised that arms made of PVC can withstand that much torque since the lever arm is so long."

There are a few pictures in the gallery that might help answer some of your questions. I know a good reason why their wings do not need to be very strong. When they grab 3 goals their wings swing back in to the body of their robot and I believe they latch so they don't swing around everywhere. Once they have 3 goals it is very hard to break their wing because it is now part of the body of the robot.
I hope I was able to answer one of your questions but it is much easier if you are able to get a hold of some of their pics.
Aman

[ahecht]

Originally posted by JAlpert
4) How fast was Kingman to the goals?
5) Could Kingman consistently control two goals?
6) Could Kingman consistently lift two goals?
7) How hard was it to push Kingman around?


Kingman is pretty fast to the goals, but, at least at the SCRRF scrimmage, they rarely managed to grab two goals. If either had been moved by the other team, they had trouble even grabbing one. Thier grabber requires precise alignment, and appears unforgiving. I only saw them ablt to do their "grab two and spin" trick once, although driving skills may have improved since SCRRF.

Once they grab two goals, they have them solid, and with a combined weight of almost 500lbs, they are very hard to move. However, they were not able to "consistently control two goals."

Kingman also had illegal pneumatics on their bot at SCRRF (they ordered custom ones from SMC, not available through the order form in the kit), I think with a <1" bore. They claimed they were legal, and I saw them basically yelling at inspectors who claimed otherwise. They may have swapped them out since then, as many teams don't have their robots to spec by the scrimmages, but we may see them DQed from competing yet.

I don't mean to rag on Kingman here. They have a great bot, and have done an excellent job. I'm just accentuating the negative in this report since everyone has already seen how good they can be.

----EDIT----
New information added below 04-03-2002 at 12:55 AM. Above message unchanged.

I have since been corrected on the issue with the pnuematics. These pistons I was referring to are actually gas springs. I was just going on what I was told by members of Team 60, who claimed at the time that they were pneumatic pistons, not gas springs, and that they had custom ordered them. After seeing the arguments with the inspectors and team 60, I asked their driver about the pistons when we were teamed up with them, and this is what I went by. I'm sorry I got the wrong impression from what they told me, and I was just trying to present all the scouting info I had on 60 (I just copied and pasted from our scouting database).

I was not trying to put down or bash Kingman or their excellent robot. I was just posting what is in our DB, which lists the strengths and weaknesses of each robot. Since the strengths had already been posted, and I had nothing new to add, I just posted our weakness column. I just hope I didn't offend anyone, by making an honest mistake.

[team60]

Zan,

What you are referring to are shock absorbers and are not pneumatic cylinders. The judges at the SVR recognized this and I can assure everyone we have done nothing illegal and will not be disqualified at regionals.

[Travis Covington]

i was one of those judges, BUT i never thought they were custom ordered from SMC

they dont look like smc cylinders and they DONT have any tubing going to them

if you would have asked them, i am sure they would have loved to explain what they did and the true legality of them

dont jump to conclusions when you dont truely know any of the facts

TC

[Dima]

People why you have to start fighting over little things like that. This is ALL a learning experience so lets make it fun for everyone. This threa was intened to ask about a particual robot. NOT to start BASHING them down to the last bolt.

I am shure that both 60 and 71 are comepletly LEGAL robots! Why you ask?

BECAUSE THEY WANT TO PLAY AND NOT SIT ON THE SIDELINES!

[Jnadke]

Also regarding Beatty (all my viewpoints are purely objective):

At the competition, they were dubbed "The Beast." With everything in functioning order, they were virtually unstoppable. Of course, that was with everything in working order. They had their fair share of problems.

In short, no bot there could outpower them. Not even the Technokats who had their share of problems... It will take good strategy to win against them.

[A. Snodgrass]

Dima is completely correct...also I had the shock absorbers explained to me in detail...they are perfectly legal. And were also checked with first. So please people...before jumping to conclusions ASK the team in question....and TRY to get along. I look forward to seeing people at LA that are going.

[Sean_330]

I talked to the inspectors in SV personally, they are fair people and they said the pneumatics were legal. Those of us who know Glenn know that he would never put an illegal device on his robot to win.

[A. Snodgrass]

BTW...it was explained multiple times to the inspectors at the scrimmage that it WAS legal...the inspectors kept ignoring the explaination however. unfortunately. at least in the case you are referring to zan.

[Sean_330]

People, please listen. AS the head ref of the SCRRF, I am begging, pleading with all of
you people present there to put our past differences behind us. Many mistakes were made
and lessons learned in the competition. We hope those lessons will create a better FIRST.
However, there are some of us that keep opening old wounds up and starting new ones. I
beg you people to keep your opinions to yourself and not post them on Chief Delphi if
they have a chance to hurt people. Many people and teams have been hurt by the actions
of a few SCRRF members that wont leave well enough alone or get their facts wrong in
their posts. What's happened in the past is in the past. There is no changing it. WE all need
to look to the future, where we can overlook our differences and the spirit of gracious
professionalism will prevail.



Sean Roberts
Head Ref, SCRRF
Someone who wants gracious professionalism to win out!

[Andrew Wyatt]

I really wish team 992 would just drop the "illegal pneumatics" thing already. they were teched at SV and passed without having to remove them. the fricking things are legal. the dead horse is throughly beaten. I may be wrong, but I sense a bit of robot envy here.

[ahecht]

I just want to say that I was not trying to put down or bash Kingman or their excellent robot. I was just going on what I was told by members of Team 60, who claimed that they were pneumatic pistons, not gas springs, and that they had custom ordered them. After seeing the arguments with the inspectors and team 60, I asked their driver about the pistons when we were teamed up with them, and this is what I went by. I'm sorry if I got the wrong impression from what they told me, and I was just trying to present all the scouting info I had on 60 (I just copied and pasted from our scouting database). My bad.

Again, this had nothing to do with hard feelings or old wounds. I was just posting what is in our DB, which lists the strengths and weaknesses of each robot. Since the strengths had already been posted, and I had nothing new to add, I just posted our weakness column. I don't think that this alone deserves the board jumping down my throat and accusing and my team and I of all kinds of things. You can say my facts are wrong without making it a subtly veiled personal attack.

Andrew, I don't know what you mean about beating a dead horse -- I haven't brought this issue up before. I'm not trying to open old wounds, and Sean, I hardly think that bringing up information I was told by Team 60 at the SCRRF scrimmage equates to still being upset about your ruling -- which I totally agreed with given the circumstances. You forget that we were on an alliance with team 60 in the finals, and have no beef with them -- they were a great partner. I just hope I didn't offend anyone, or, as you put it, hurt many people and teams, by making an honest mistake (fueled in part by 3 hours of jetlag).

[A. Snodgrass]

Zan...it had nothing to do with seans ruling in this case....it had to do with, well, me. I was present for that inspection. I didnt need the reminder. BTW my sympathies on the jet lag. That always sucks.

[yimjh]

Just like to add that Kingman isn't unstoppable (as long as you don't let them get 2 goals). We were lucky to be seeded 4th so we got to pick an awesome alliance (Gunn-192 and New Technology- 814).

In our first elmination match against Kingman and cheesy poofs, we were able to have new tech race out to the side goal, ram into it and then shove kingman all the way back to their home zone. At that point, we think their motors actually got backdriven and drew major amps to trip their 60amp breaker. They just sat there for the rest of the match and we ended up winning :)

However, in the 3rd elimination match, I'm thinking they switched to high gear right off the bat and actually beat New Tech to the goals. which seemed to work out alright, although it was still hard for them to get lined up to grab 2 goals when going that fast. Unfortuantely, even though Gunn was able to grab 2 goals again in that round, we still ended up losing the match.

All in all, I'm sure Kingman and Beatty are really tough, but they are not completely invincible. It's just gonna take good strategy.

-yimjh
Aragon Robotics Team #840

[ChrisH]

The question of the cylinders on Kingman's robot boils down to "What are you going to call a pneumatic device?"

If you are going to define it as something that uses air or any other gas under pressure as a working fluid to CAUSE motion. Then Kingman's cylinders are clearly legal. They do not cause things to move, they merely slow them down.

If you are going to define a pneumatic device as something hooked up to the compressor or reserviors then again they qualify because those cylinders aren't connected to either.

However if you change that definition to something that uses air or any other gas under pressure as a working fluid to CONTROL motion then maybe you might have a point. The cylinders do slow the motion of the arms and therefore exert some control over them.

Personally I could not get FIRST to rule one way or the other on what constituted a pneumatic device. In fact they specifically refused to even post my question. When I suggested making my own damper (from legal parts of course) they were emphatic about my not doing so, but again the post was not included in the FRC group (their choice not mine).

Assuming the cylinders are not considered a pneumatic device as under the first two definitions they still must comply with the additional hardware list. This includes anything in the SPI catalog. When I looked through the most recent SPI catalog I had, I did not find any gas springs or cylinders, but I do recall them being present in earlier years because at one point I considered using some. Many catalog houses will continue to stock and sell items from old catalogs even if they are not in more recent catalogs. I do not remember the rules specifying which SPI catalog was to be used, so you could say that you could use anything that SPI ever listed in their catalog. If somebody can point me to the page that Kingman's cylinders are on in whatever year it would ease my mind on that point. In any case, something very like those cylinders could be constructed out of clearly legal materials from the catalog if you wanted to take the time and trouble to do so. So I don't care whether they purchased the cylinders pre-built or not. Just like I don't care whether you purchased your gears pre-cut or hobbed them yourself.

According to Glenn of Team 60, he did check out the cylinders with FIRST before they were used. Though apparently this was done by telephone and so was not posted on the FRC group. It is not Team 60s fault if this did not get communicated to other people who wanted to use similar cylinders. Those teams could have used the same channels.

In summary, I feel that Kingman made what could be called a "good faith effort" to determine the legality of their cylinders before using them. Under at least two of the three definitions above they are certainly legal if obtained from otherwise legal materials. Therefore, I'm not going to argue with them about it.

In fact, if it were a crime to use the cylinders they have, it would be really hard to convict them because they did TRY to find out what the rules were, though maybe they recieved an incorrect intrepretation for their efforts. I realize this legal theory doesn't work with the IRS but most other courts will accept it. (The IRS has been known to prosecute people for doing what IRS agents advised them to do because it was illegal and made it stick)

One final point. In a discussion with another highly ranked team about other issues related to being a top team the comment was made. "If you're good enough people will hate you no matter what, get used to it". My question for everyone else is "Would you be making such a stink if it was Team 605 (last place seed at SV) that was using supposedly illegal materials?"

Personally I admire Kingman for their consistantly excellent performance, and ability to continually think outside the box. They work differently as a team than some, but that's OK. All teams are different internally because they have different individuals on them. They have access to a powder coater so their robots always look good and that's OK too. Their robot doesn't look half so impressive in the pictures before it was coated.

[Joe Johnson]

I have no opinion about the team 60 robot -- I have not followed the ins and outs of the discussion.

BUT...

...What I have noticed this year is that FIRST inspections have really been lax in terms of use of illegal material.

I have had a lot of discussions with veteran teams that are really hot about this topic. There are SO MANY teams running with obviously illegal material it is somewhat discouraging. As one person put it, "I am sweating over the exact alloy and temper of the aluminum I am getting to make sure that it is EXACTLY what Small Parts Inc. would have given me an here is a team running with 10 feet of stove pipe from a local hardware store!"

Yeah, that stove pipe team was probably not going to be a huge factor in the tourney with or without the illegal material, but that is not the point. If veteran teams start cuttting such corners, it really COULD become a factor in whether a machine can be made or not or whether it could make weight or not -- in effect, the outcome of tournaments will start to be affected by the use of illegal material or not.

I think that this is something that we should all bring up to FIRST in the off season.

Joe J.

[Katie Reynolds]

...What I have noticed this year is that FIRST inspections have really been lax in terms of use of illegal material.

Joe: I noticed that too. At MMR, we were told that all of the corners on our robot were too sharp. Rather than filing them down we were told to tape them up, and that unless they were taped, the robot would not pass inspection. Along with taping up every corner on our bot, we were told to put tape over every bolt sticking out, also. We asked the inspector what tape he wanted us to use and the response was "Any kind of tape you want."
So I asked, "Can we use electrical tape?"
"Yes."
"Masking Tape?"
"Yes."
"How about Duct tape?"
"Yes."
"Duct tape!?"
"Yes. As long as the corners and bolts are covered any kind of tape is fine."

We wound up taping our corners and bolts with electrical tape, figuring that at least electrical tape is legal to use on the robot (though technically only as an insulator). Electrical tape is so thin, it doesn't do much for dulling the corners, but we taped them up so we could pass inspection. Note to all teams (especially rookie teams): From what I've seen and heard, at regional inspection a lot of things got by the inspectors. It probably (and hopefully) won't be that way at nationals. For my teams sharp corners problem: the first thing we did when we got back was look for caps for the ends of our Bosch and caps for all of the bolts on our robot - no more electrical tape!

- Katie

[Gary Dillard]

"I did see a little mean robot 'Cerebral' or something like that take the center goal and team 60 and place them back against the operator station then the battery connection or breaker went. For those first few seconds the 'Cerebral' bot showed they had what it takes for speed and power."

Apparently they DIDN'T have what it takes for speed and power if they blew their breaker during this maneuver. Our robot could apply 3900 pounds of force with stalled motors, but we'd be drawing 110 amps! It doesn't do any good to have lots of power if you haven't tuned the gearbox and drive train to operate without blowing breakers during the match to take advantage of it.

Y'all should also be aware that the SquareD breakers have had some problems and sometimes blow prematurely - need to consider this in the power management as well.

FYI, we (SPAM, team 180) have 12 fps speed in high gear at 8 amps per motor, and produce 770 pounds of force (limited by belt traction - we don't ever get there) in low gear at 30 amps per motor. Check out KSC videos - match 63 (which we won the outstanding play award for) and final match 2 in particular - to see us in action. We pretty much could beat anyone to the goal and push anyone and anything, although noone had file cards for traction like Beatty. Heat Wave - are you going to put that stuff on your brake for nationals? I don't know that we could break it loose, although we might bend the PVC trying.

[Matt Reiland]

Apparently they DIDN'T have what it takes for speed and power if they blew their breaker during this maneuver. Our robot could apply 3900 pounds of force with stalled motors, but we'd be drawing 110 amps! It doesn't do any good to have lots of power if you haven't tuned the gearbox and drive train to operate without blowing breakers during the match to take advantage of it.

Sorry Gary I wasn't clear in my post, 'Cerebral' didn't blow the breaker Kingman did which is why I was so impressed with the move. If 180 is at Nationals we wouldn't mind a race to the goals to see whos fastest ;)

Sadly though our robot can't apply 770 lbs probably about 1/2 of that or less we don't have 2 speed tranny's

Speaking on illegal parts usage its really odd to still see Van Door motors this year (I saw them at WMR)

[Lance]

Just thought I'd throw this in... Heat Wave (312) did put the stuff on the brakes that beatty uses. It looks like a wire brush thing, but they are still pushable. We never pushed against 312 directly, but we did play against them and beat them in the finals, and 343 could push them even when there brakes were down. Heat Wave had a pretty good robot though, and they could get 2 goals, but they couldn't let go of the goals when they were getting pulled out of the zone.

[team60]

Gary,

The match you are referring to we did not actually blow a breaker. Our driver let off the throttle and the robot hit us at full speed. This caused our 60 amp breaker to switch off. We were not using the Breaker lock and have since started using the lock in all of our matches.

[Gary Dillard]

Can anyone on Heat Wave confirm what your brake configuration was at Kennedy? I had heard (but can't confirm) that you had some sort of cleat on the brake but the refs made you take it off after the practice rounds. I thought you just had some sort of high traction pad when we went up against you in the finals, and we were able to push you down the field. Did you change it to the file blocks before the other regionals? Was that what you originally had at Kennedy?

Sorry to hear about the breaker getting bumped - lots of people had problems with those. One other problem we saw alot of was battery quick-connects coming apart - they're a little looser this year than previous years. We started putting a cable tie over the connection each time to prevent that.

[WakeZero]

We also had to put a wire tie on our battery connector, it came off once in one of our matches in Seattle. Luckily we worked out this and other such little probs with our robot there, so we could actually be competitive in LA =)