Worst Decision of the Week! [Archive]

JJMax7

21-02-2006, 15:34

So, in the rush to finish the robot this week, we had the great idea to fix our dongle. In the process, it broke. We can't live without disable-ness and easy auto, so we came up with this:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a33/Kakujin/FIRST/MVC-033S.jpg

Yes, the wires are stuck directly into the port with no pin, connector, or solder.

So, what was your worst desicion of the week?

Tristan Lall

21-02-2006, 15:38

What, you've never used a paper clip for this purpose?

Oh, and my worst decision of the week (last week, really) is brought to you by the letters and numbers 12L14....

Billfred

21-02-2006, 15:38

Not sleeping enough and eating too much pizza.

--Billfred (written while nursing one heck of a sore throat)

Rick TYler

21-02-2006, 15:55

It's not a horror story, and wasn't a bad decision, but four students took the control console to Nathan's home to wire up the controls and solder the Port 3 DB 15 connector to the RIO's console. Despite starting at 10pm and finishing at 3am, everything worked the first time it was plugged in. Freaking amazing.

NeedMoreEngines

21-02-2006, 17:55

Not using those "Mechanix" gloves sooner. I now have 3 fairly large cuts on one hand. One of them kind of leaked blood for an hour.

Luckily, I wore them and soon after I had another mishap. I was drilling and the bit sucked in the glove and twisted my arm around. I thought for sure my finger was wrecked but the gloves protected it without a scratch.

Thanks Mechanix! (cheesy smile & thumbs up)

Barry Craig

21-02-2006, 19:18

Riveting my palm. Okay, it wasn't exactly riveting it, but my hand got stuck in the pinch point of the pop riveter. I have also done this with wire strippers, polycarbonate, aluminum and other pointy things, almost all on my left hand. I swear, after the season's over, my hand will just shrivel up and fall off.

Murf the Smurf

21-02-2006, 20:25

Welding a metal bracket with a gas welder to wood

burn baby burn

ha ha ha

need more mountain dew

BobC

21-02-2006, 20:31

My Worst Decision of the Week?? Reading this thread!! :) :) :cool: :cool:

Dan Petrovic

21-02-2006, 20:35

The worst decision of the entire build season:

Painting the robot

We are overweight...

But it looks real good!

Cuog

21-02-2006, 20:39

My worst descision both happened monday, first while testing autonomous i set the laptop on the robot while it ran off and stepped on the cord pulling off the computer while i ran behind to make sure it didnt fall

then a programming cable got left on the robot and melted on one of the motors and let out the magic smoke(luckily only the cable was damaged)

ReaverOfSouls

21-02-2006, 21:40

Although it didn't happen this week, Our biggest mistake was when someone tried to hotwire a gear box to a battery to test it. There was alot of smoke...

Nita

21-02-2006, 22:47

We fried a victor because it was wired the wrong way.

Stuart

21-02-2006, 23:39

eating that 5th fajita monday dinner . . made for a bad night/morning. but they were so good

atomikitten

21-02-2006, 23:52

Nuttyman54

22-02-2006, 02:04

anna~marie

22-02-2006, 07:48

Stripping a wire while inside the robot... when it came off I nailed my hand on the frame and my face with the strippers!

Greg Perkins

22-02-2006, 08:06

Not being on a team... :(

Bharat Nain

25-02-2006, 11:09

StephLee

25-02-2006, 12:39

Worst decision: Pushing the robot down the hallway with the speed controllers on brake. "What's that smell..." Next time we try to drive the robot...sparks start flying...and we're all clueless as to why...until, of course, we spot the giant burn mark on the inside of one of the speed controllers. Whoops. :rolleyes:

Mike Nawrot

25-02-2006, 21:12

Our worst decision had to be the night before our rollout. It was saturday night, and the programmers had just gotten the robot. I had to mount the drop down guard to protect the shooter from other robots, and i figured it could wait, since i didn't want to disturb the programmers. the next day, at rollout, since the acceleration and deceleration code had been taken out, our robot got a little tipsy at the very end..... and it flipped on its front side, onto the shooter :ahh: . Luckily, kevin had mounted the lexan gaurd for the wheel of the shooter, which was made from lexan and to be replaced by the new aluminum wheel. When the robot fell, the guard protected the wheel, which wouldn't have mattered anyway, but the impact shattered our lazy susan :eek: (the giant ring of ball bearings we're using as a turret) It was the sunday before ship, so we some of our adults on a road trip to mcmaster (about an hour away from us) early the next morning. We mounted the guurd, and bought a few spare lazy susans. Worst descision had to be not putting that guard on... or taking the accel/decel code out. Luckily, we learned from our mistakes and fixed the stability problem before a competition. Never forget MORT face-plant '06.

Cory

25-02-2006, 21:18

pressing my finger in an arbor press while broaching a keyway :rolleyes:

Sgraff_SRHS06

25-02-2006, 21:30

You know, when it's all over, no one says they wish spending more time at work. They wish they spent more time at home with the family (at school with the team) raising the child (building the robot).
Seniors, do you realize this is your last robot season?!

Yeah, I do. But I might mentor somewhere during my college years, because FIRST Robotics is just one of the experiences that inspired me during my high school years. If I can't mentor, I'll just simply go to one of the regionals circa the time I'm on Spring Break.

EDIT: Worst decision during the Build Season was to put up that "Team Sweetie" picture on the front of our robot. So many people were calling either us "Team Sweetie" or the robot "Sweetie"/"Team Sweetie".

Xeilos

25-02-2006, 23:30

Our teacher, mentor, coach decided to wire our shooter motor directly to the battery for some testing, a we thought we might have pinched the casing of the motor as we mounted it. the large CIM Fisher Price, after about 5 secounds of it spooling up, the wires melted, fused together, and put out a large cloud of blue smoke, needless to say the motor never worked again. lol :ahh:

ChuNalt787

26-02-2006, 16:37

my friend left had his month old laptop open and someone dodged a ball infront of it which caused the ball to hit the laptop and destroy the screen.

FourPenguins

26-02-2006, 16:53

Hmm...Mike forgot team 11's other mistake:
Our dongle was rewired at some point (I don't know how or why) and when the programmers plugged it into the OI, something happened that shouldn't have, and now it's just a very expensive peice of metal and plastic.
Always check your wiring. Luckily, we have other OIs.

team1852

26-02-2006, 17:02

Forgetting to put up chain guards until 11 PM day before ship date and knowing that the robot will be picked up at around noon the next day. :rolleyes:

-Team 1852

Steve S.

26-02-2006, 17:31

hmm...im not too sure i think there's too many
Here's a few:

1) eating too much pizza
2) drinking too much pop
3) going to the scrimmage too early with nothing to do for 3 hours!!!

Mike Nawrot

26-02-2006, 17:44

I didn't mention the programmers plugging the camera in upside down in a rush right before our rollout :p ..... they had to manually aim the shooter.... so it wasn't as impressive. and now you know why we blame the programmers for everything...... cuz they plug stuff in wrong and break our OIs. Silly programmers :p (btw, i program on my spare time, but not for the team, so i am allowed to say stuff about programmers :D

mechanicalbrain

26-02-2006, 17:52

It happened four weeks ago but... Looking down at a piece of 80/20 while yanking it upward, upward into my face.

lukevanoort

26-02-2006, 20:21

When I was stripping a wire for affixing to a speed controller when the board was in our robot already. I really should have taken the board out, but it is wedged in so tight, that's really hard (I'm actually worried a bit about victor airflow, not a lot, but a bit). Anyway, I was really pulling hard to get the insulation off, so when it came free suddenly, my arm flew into one of our Victors. Not good... but it still worked fine!

the_short1

26-02-2006, 21:39

i love the mention of magic smoke .. i heard about it through a mentor of mine, and thought it was of is own incarnation, but it seems many people know of it..

read carefully "BACKSIDE SOLDIER CUP VIEW" for wiring competition port ... DOH! (last year)

runaway robot w/ laptop on top? you think thats bad... we started up a 2003 RC board on our practice bot, it was donated and had no clue that the default autom code was full power forward.. .we plug it in and had autom switch on (accidentially), and it pulled the labtop off the desk, hitting the floor, and the robot lunging forward into a heavyduty drafting desk almost knocking it over, and almost pinching me in between.

but this week.. lets seee.. running around in the auto shop nextdoor, a student ran into a vehicle lift post.. ouch.. <not me

Adama

27-02-2006, 15:37

we put our hopper together with corrugated cardboard and hot glue at the last minute.

Zoheb N

27-02-2006, 15:43

one of our worst desicions was allowin one of the kids to be incharge or a task when we all knew he would struggle and probably mess it up..... it really isn't his fault i just like to mess with him...lol

dutta

27-02-2006, 17:59

We did two things that combined are rather dangerous, though we quickly rectified it

1. We built around the battery (how was this not noticed...)
2. The battery lacked proper electrical taping

So, come time to change the battery, it is in the absolute tighest possible space. Just in the path of the battery is a piece of 80/20. So, when initially removing the battery, the electrodes made contact with the 80/20 and made some rather ominous fireworks. We were, however, able to remove the battery safely, and designed a better removal path.

Schneidie

27-02-2006, 18:12

I'd say one of my worst descisions was to make a mock up of our camera mount, and then go home for the night. I came in the next day, and it hadn't been remade, so it looks a little ummmm..... messy (to say the least). Our camera still works good.

Rick TYler

27-02-2006, 21:07

I'd say one of my worst descisions was to make a mock up of our camera mount, and then go home for the night.

Heh. I cut the pieces for part of our control panel (the student involved hadn't been trained on the saw), and left them on a work table. I forgot about them for a while and went on the teaching some students how to solder. When I remembered the panel parts and went to get them, I couldn't find them. Eventually, they turned up in the scrap bin.

KuhnDog

28-02-2006, 12:44

Thanks a lot Zoheb! I didn't screw up anything important (I think). The worst decision I made this year was head-butting a prototype elevator. I had a scar on my lip for the next few days, but the elevator was structually sound.

seg9585

28-02-2006, 20:30

My worst decision this year: trying to solder a metal gear to a plastic servo shaft....

Alex698

28-02-2006, 20:39

What, you've never used a paper clip for this purpose?

Oh, and my worst decision of the week (last week, really) is brought to you by the letters and numbers 12L14....

We tried using paperclips, but found out it destroyed and was pushing the sockets out the back towards the controller. :ahh:

spears312

28-02-2006, 21:11

We tried to MacGyver together two severed wires in a serial cable with a set of keys, tape, and spit (we were at a demo). It worked out for a few seconds, the radio modem it was connected to powered up and started transmitting, but then it died again. So we just had to resort to a new cable.

Andrew Blair

28-02-2006, 21:28

Worst decision this year was definently a new one...

We had everything hooked up to our electronics, but the code was hung up. So, as our drive was working, we plugged the drive pwms into the shooter speed controller, and left others just dangling down on the vertical board.

This worked fine for a week, but then, I turned the thing on once, and a HUGE cloud of smoke came out from under the guard. More smoke than from a victor burnout. I thought I had somehow killed everything on the board, about 1000 dollars in speed controllers, and maybe the brain. As we examined closer, a pwm leads had draped across the power input to a victor, and burned all the insulation off of the common wire, back to the brain. So, back to panicking. The brain powered fine, but none of the pwm's would work. However, through the grace of god or something, after a code reload, all the pwm outs still worked.

Bottom line: Don't let pwms lay out. They conduct electricity or something...

Evil Robotics

01-03-2006, 00:55

The programmers installed a gyro to help control driving straight. It worked great on the cart with the wheels in the air. When placed on the ground and gently bumped it went totally out of control and then proceeded to the olympic event bot wrestling.

It must have acted like feedback loop and increased the signal by having the bot move more every time the bot moved.

Commanchetruck

06-03-2006, 21:11

Grabbing a very hot piece of aluminum out of the air after cutting it with the saws all for a while. ow

114Klutz

07-03-2006, 00:21

I'll begin this post by saying I'm an animator - and know little about hardware.

During the course of build season, I was instructed to drill 'speed holes' through sprockets. 3/2 inch thick sprocket hubs. The drill press worked fine - and although making quite a few screeching noises, drilled through the sprocket hub.

Alarmed by the screeching noise of the drill press, one of the more mechanically inclined members came in and tried to cool the superhot sprocket with cutting oil. He attempted to drill through it again, stalling the drill press.

Later - I realized the reason that I managed to drill through it so easily was that I didn't use the cutting oil - thus not hardening the steel. This allowed me to easily chew through it while the more mechanically inclined members stalled the press.

Uberbots

08-03-2006, 00:49

I was instructed to add a dual joystick control to the robot... and so i did.
Low and behold, though, the robot charged forward and did not show any intention of stopping. When we moved the joystick a little bit, the thing suddenly reversed direction and ended up hitting me in the shin. owie.
another stupid thing... this actually happened exactly a year ago. We let one of our coordinately-challenged drivers take wheel, and he ended up taking a chunk our of our schools brick wall. We put it back in with duct tape as a last resort. oh fun fun....