How do you feel toward you robot?

[Rickertsen2]

How did you feel about this year's robot? What isn't finished? What are its strengths? Weeknesses?

Me.. Its my final year FIRST as a high school student and I feel a bit disappointed to tell you the truth. We decided to be 'weird' and go with a pneumatic shooter. It is DEAD ON accurate +- 6 inches at the most, but the ROF is approx only one per second due to our hopper design which was almost an afterthought. At one point we had 3 differnt people building three seperate designs.

The camera tracking works, but its too slow for my tastes. I never got the time to tune my PID loops. I have all the bits and pieces of autonomous working but nothing has been tried all together even once. Also, at the competition i am going to have to generate a table of shooter angles vs camera angle to target.

The drivetrain is your typical 4wd using the kit trannies and a pretty low ratio so nothing special there.

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics. I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

I was really excited about programming this year. I was finally going to have a chance to show off my stuff and mess wiht PID, vision systems etc on a FIRST robot. Well, since our other programmer graduated last year, found that up until 3 days before ship i was soo tied up with mechanical things that i did not write a single line of code. It all works(in theory ) but i fear we will not get our more than say 6 balls in auto.

I'm sure that all sounded rather rambly and disorganized. If other people feel positively about their robot i would love to hear their story. What is life like on other teams?

[Nuttyman54]

First off, just getting a moving, shooting robot is an accomplishment. Also, keep in mind people usually only post their robots on these forums if THEY feel it's a good robot. I'm sure there are plenty of others out there, maybe even some veteran teams, who feel exactly like you do. Have some pride!

Our original plan included a shooter, but we never completed it, and probably would be overweight if we had. right now we go for the corner goals, but the main accomplishment is the shifting transmission, which is the first one our team has ever built (to my knowledge). Overall, i feel we have a solid robot, but I'm dubious about our chances. I think it'll come down to being a good defense for us.

[Joe J.]

This has been my 4th year FIRST as a student. This build season has lived up to my expectations fairly well. We built our team's most complex robot to date, and we did it without a machine shop. This years bot is about 10 times more complex than last years and we managed to get it working before ship

Getting the robot done is a big accomplishment for any team.

My team likes to joke about our 2003 robot that couldn't run a match without blowing up a transmission (we refer to it as the worst FIRST robot ever) And our 2004 robot that went into the crate with a non working drive train that was too complex to fix, and plans to install a new one on practice day, even that one didn't work well.

[akshar]

from what i saw of our robot, regit 2... its a solid defensive botg but iw was built for offense, and we've worked out the kinks for tghat but i havn't seen it in action so im stgill confident that the bot is a solid Defense and most likely a great offense bot,

[TimCraig]

I'm pretty disappointed. We had a good plan and the execution was good until the last two weeks of the build and then it kind of fell apart. This is my 4th year mentoring a FIRST team and it's most likely my last.

[IraJason]

I'm from a rookie team, Dawgma Team 1712, so this is my rookie year in FIRST, and I am extremely proud of both my team and our robot. We stayed focused throughout the entire build season and had our robot finished a week ahead of time, allowing our programmers ample time to test code and for practice. We made a really simple robot that picks up balls and spits them out into the side goals, but it is really efficient at what it does and we are pleased to produce something that is fully functional.

FIRST has been a great exeprience for me. Seeing that little robot of ours going around after weeks of hard work has been well worth the time and effort.

[SpaceBoy2000]

Luke described it best: "What a piece of junk!"

Well, I think it'll rip itself apart in our first round. First, the motor mounts will go, since I kinda fudged them all together. Next, the hopper will collapse, and the electronics will melt into a smoking heap. Yes, I'm really surpised it's held itself together for so long. Or the fact that the picker upper roller thing works. Honestly, the measurements were winged ("Eh, this looks right"), the whole $@#$@#$@#$@# system was untested, and I was running off CAD drawings as soon as I thought of something.

Thank god I didn't touch the design of the cannon too much, at least one part of our robot might not blow up. And the drive system was rigged without me, so, I guess that should work too. Basically, if I had no connection to it, it'll be fine.

I hate how undermanned we are. Our robot's fat and overweight. Thank god we fed it cheese for the last few days, at least it's BARELY in the weight limit.

[Zoheb N]

i feel awesome about our robot...mostly cause it actually works and i spent many hours on it with barely and sleep and i think most of the other people feel the same way...

[Wolf103FM]

I'm feeling decent about ours this year, Our only problem is the shooter though so that is kinda giving me mixed feelings, wondering if we can get it working or not. Every year we've had something that doesn't work as planned, or at all, we never got the camera even hooked up. We didn't discover the shooter problem until Monday night before ship, becausre that was the first time we had actually tested it hooked up to the robot, so right then I was about ready to go outside and beat the ever living crap out of something. Buy hey, having fun and enjoying it is just as good as winning, and if you win, that's just an added bonus. We've still got a whole month until the trip (Palmetto) to think about how to get that thing working, so who knows, maybe our streak of having our main function not work right will be over this year, if not, there's still next year.

[sanddrag]

Hey everybody,

Whatever your robot looks like, be proud of it. Even if it isn't powder coated, anodized, and CNCed, YOU built it and YOU made it happen. YOU just gave up 6 weeks of your life for something you believed in, and no matter the outcome, that is something for anyone to be proud of. Even if your robot didn't turn out exactly as you thought it would, you have accomplished and learned more in the past six weeks than probably a majority of people in the country. Be proud of your machine. Don't kick it to the gutter. Stand behind it. Believe in it. Give it your all. Take pride in your robot. :)

[NoodleKnight]

How I feel? There's a LOT of room for improvement, haha.

But anyways, +1 to sanddrag's comment, I do like the robot which my team has created, even if it does have a long string of problems that will indefinetaly plague us during the competitions. =P

[Cpt_Dave_Lister]

I love it but it could still be greatly improved!

[Koko Ed]

Unless your robot is a pile of part or you were jettisoned from your team (supposedly) unjustly who's gonna say they hate their robot?

[Billfred]

Unless your robot is a pile of part or you were jettisoned from your team (supposedly) unjustly who's gonna say they hate their robot?
I think there's a difference between not liking one's robot and not liking what a robot is doing. I loved Bob (our rookie robot), but it wasn't going to see a Saturday afternoon.

To answer the original post, though, I think I'm more confident than ever that our robot can really deliver. A big focus early in the season was on getting a good drivetrain, one that won't swerve around like Ockham or limp around the field like Bob. The 6WD setup, from the Kitbot, does wonders for this. The camera control doesn't hurt, either.

The shooter is still a bit up in the air. We tested it Monday night (the video is in the signature), and it seemed like it could stand a little more range. In addition, the hopper has a bit of a tendency to jam. We had some possible fixes before ship, so we'll be testing them on Thursday at Palmetto.

Regardless, this is our best one yet.

[Lkr220]

this is my rookie year in first and my teams second year.... i LOVE our robot this year...there are still a few kinks to work out but i still love it...even if it winds up that we cant fix everything i will still love our bot because we made it and its our baby. :D

as of ship day, as far as i know, our robot worked mechanically...but our programming is a little messed up....hopefully our programmers will pull through and make us even more proud of our baby :) but even if they dont its been a fun journey getting to where we are and we'll learn from our mistakes and make an even better bot next year! :D

[DjAlamose]

Here is a poll for this thread (in another thread......)

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44798

[GaryVoshol]

How did you feel about this year's robot?I am proud of the robot our team built. It's far from perfect, there's still things to be done or modified. But it can score some points, so we are very happy about that.

At one point we had 3 differnt people building three seperate designs.This sounds like you are a mostly-student-build team. I don't want to reopen the student/mentor role thing again. I'll just say that anything that the students build, you have to be proud of.

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics.I see all these amazing machines, and I think, gee, we could'a done that, why not? Why not is because we didn't think of it. FIRST Robotics is not just about building, but also about imagining. And about building on past experience.

I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here. In the disappointment over not achieving perfection, we often forget that this is the most important aspect. Not what we did, but how we did it.

I was really excited about programming this year. I was finally going to have a chance to show off my stuff and mess wiht PID, vision systems etc on a FIRST robot. Well, since our other programmer graduated last year, found that up until 3 days before ship i was soo tied up with mechanical things that i did not write a single line of code.I think you are in role that can be particularly disappointing and demoralizing. You the sometimes forgotten last part of the team. They pay no attention to you until you get to competition and your programs don't work. You asked for a week or two with the completed machine, but you got 2 days (if even that). Well, that's how it works in life too. If you are the last part of the process, you get the blame when the project is late, no matter how late the parts upstream from you were - I know that all too well from my job. You need to make up for all the mistakes and failures ahead of you. If you do, well that was what they all expected you to do. If you don't ...

It all works(in theory ) but i fear we will not get our more than say 6 balls in auto.And that's 6 more than many other teams will get.

[KenWittlief]

"How do I feel?! The question is not logical!" - Mr Spock

[the_short1]

KISS principle really realy does make a world of a difference to rookie teams, remember that and it will lead to good things. But as someone said, no matter what .. be proud... . 6 weeks... read that again.. 6 weeks you designed and built a WHOLE ROBOT and having to teach students! i know i felt the pressure, as i knew how to do the electronics by myself, but having to teach a few gr9s took up most of my time.

so i am proud of our robot, for the shear fact that its a robot, that most people only dream to have the opportunity to play with, and that mostly only large companies get to build! So be fortunate that you get to play with a robot that YOU built!

-kevin

[Jeremiah H]

[QUOTE=

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics. I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

[/QUOTE]

Hey, the season ain't over yet. You still have the competitions to look forward to, and I am sure that you have learned something for your time that will help you in the future. Remember too, the best looking robot is not nescessarily the best robot.

As for 393, we have had an excellent year in my opinion. We decided early on to work within our engineering capabilities, so we weren't trying to do something that was going to be extremely difficult. Our bot came out looking great, even though we had to drop 8.6 pounds in one day :eek: <that was fun> I hated having to cut up those nice, pretty fenders... but thats the way it goes. Anyway, like i said, i know looks aren't everything in a good robot, but they sure make everybody feel good.

[Not2B]

I think everyone has something they would change on the robot. You now have seen other options, other ideas, other ways to implement things... I'm SURE you've learned something new by looking at other's robots. It's not a bad thing to want to make changes, or think someone else has a REALLY cool way of doing something. It's natural. For me... I wish we had spent more time thinking about using belts instead of rollers for ball feeds. But oh well. We have rollers, and we'll make them work.

So Love your robot, and it will love you.

[Schneidie]

I am a newbie, and I love our robot.IT' together and working. I look forward to our 2 regionals.

[Josh Murphy]

nobody can really put thier bot down until they see it in action. you spend all this time on it and you guys are putting some of your machines down. i spent many hours a week on this project and i am proud of our machine whether it is as competitive as i want it to be or not so don't give up yet there is still hope.

[Chriszuma]

How did you feel about this year's robot?
I'm an engineering type. I don't have feelings.

[pyro20911d]

I don't think that our bot is as (for lack of a better word) finished as it could have been. By the ship date, we were still a little unsure about certain characteristics of the bot and whether we should change them.

heck we'll probably be making major changes to it at the competition....but I still have a decent amount of faith in it.

[lukevanoort]

I really like this year's robot as compared to previous years. We may not be powder coated or anodized, but the robot is still good looking (comparatively speaking). It has zero wood on it (for the first time ever) and is mostly plexiglass and aluminum. A little tin (yes tin, I'm not kidding) made it on as well as bright yellow polycord. If we get it mounted at VCU, we'll have a pimp fan (it's spraypainted silver and looks like a hunk of metal due to bad spraypaint), we have huge aluminum 54 tooth AM sprockets, and our electricals are nice and hidden. (they're sandwiched between our ball pickup and our hopper) The drivetrain is the best we've ever made (KOP gearbox, 5.7 ft/s, 6WD), and everything was tested before ship. (Not counting 2003 when we were literally a box on wheels, our first time ever) Intrestingly, this team is one of the smallest, with most of the robot work done by five (two of whom don't attend every day, and two students who always come in a but late) along with two mentors, a Chemist and an Industrial Engineer.

[comwiz7]

I think our robot is great! I had absolutely nothing to do with the building, as I'm the programmer but I really must say that my team did a great job on it.

[Daniel Morse]

A friend and I were the two primary mechanical designers this year, and let me say that we got pretty attached to our baby. We stressed simplicity this year, and as of right now, it has paid off. You can see a front view of it here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pictures.php?s=&action=single&picid=13146&direction=DESC&sort=date&perrow=10&trows=10&quiet=Verbose)
It has a collector on the back, which scoops balls from the floor, and to date has not had a single foul up. On the front, we have a door that holds balls in, and it is simple as well, and again has worked very well in all of our tests. Our Omni wheels are also simple, and also have worked great. Strengths-simplicity, efficiency, durability (check the bumpers), manuverability. Weaknesses-hard to shoot into, only can score on the one point goals, is a tricky drive system (our programmer is dynamite with it, luckily :D ). I think we did well this year, but that remains to be seen at competition. If anyone is at Manchester BAE regional or Boston regional, come check us out.

[Joe_Widen]

How did you feel about this year's robot? What isn't finished? What are its strengths? Weeknesses?

Me.. Its my final year FIRST as a high school student and I feel a bit disappointed to tell you the truth. We decided to be 'weird' and go with a pneumatic shooter. It is DEAD ON accurate +- 6 inches at the most, but the ROF is approx only one per second due to our hopper design which was almost an afterthought. At one point we had 3 differnt people building three seperate designs.

The camera tracking works, but its too slow for my tastes. I never got the time to tune my PID loops. I have all the bits and pieces of autonomous working but nothing has been tried all together even once. Also, at the competition i am going to have to generate a table of shooter angles vs camera angle to target.

The drivetrain is your typical 4wd using the kit trannies and a pretty low ratio so nothing special there.

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics. I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

I was really excited about programming this year. I was finally going to have a chance to show off my stuff and mess wiht PID, vision systems etc on a FIRST robot. Well, since our other programmer graduated last year, found that up until 3 days before ship i was soo tied up with mechanical things that i did not write a single line of code. It all works(in theory ) but i fear we will not get our more than say 6 balls in auto.

I'm sure that all sounded rather rambly and disorganized. If other people feel positively about their robot i would love to hear their story. What is life like on other teams?


What regionals are you going to? If you come to team 1675 pits, our programmer designed an awesome program that records autonomous. We're going to Buckeye and the Wisconsin Regional. If you email me back, I can talk to the mentor about getting you the program if your team isnt going to a regional we are. I hope this works out for you and I feel your pain. But all you can do is be proud of what you did. This is FIRST and everyone is here to work together. I would love to help your team in anyway I can assist you. If you need anything, give Team 1675 a holler, and we'll be glad to help. Email me if your not attending one of our regionals. If i dont talk back to you, good luck to your team and every team. Cant wait for the fun to begin!!!!!!!

[Andrew Blair]

I feel rather mixed, as usual. The thing has a solid drive, one that is fairly gaurenteed to be reliable, but the rest of it was pieced on top of itself. Build the in roller, build the feed roller, build the shooter, tear down the shooter, redesign... It's kind of a partially functioning mess. Looking from the other side of the fence however, it's problems are really quite fixable. Our first practice day will be a nightmare. Our need to build the best robot ended up with the best ideas, but not time enough or stability to build it properly. The first regional will tell all...

[pyro20911d]

What he said...lol

[plutonium83]

This is the first year I've been feeling so-so about our robot. I guess its because this year I've been the most dedicated, taken the most responsibility and did the most work out of my 4 years on the team.

Its really weird that I feel this way, as it seems to be the exact opposite of the previous replies. Its scary, knowing that what I did in those 6 weeks effects our performance at competition. Nothing in my entire life has ever been more important to me.

During build, we have had to make compromises due to the time limitations and I feel like we're in the mid-range of our potential. Somehow, while we where shipping the robot, I had an overwhelming sense of guilt, that I let my team down. We could accomplish so much, yet we shipped a robot that did not meet my expectations.

I really want to dissolve this mindset, I wonder if anyone has any advice to overcome this?

[irishninja]

Nothing but love. At my school we have a tradition where at the end of the year the seniors post crush lists from the entire high school career up on one day. Last year, a senior and now mentor put the four robots he was here for up there to. Again Nothing but love. Love love and umm... more love. Its tired love, but its love. How many times can i use the word love in this lovely post?

[Dan Zollman]

Maybe this is heresy, and maybe it's just because I didn't spend a lot of time working on the robot itself (I was doing a lot of other stuff), but I don't consider our robot a person. The rest of our team said "goodbye" TO the robot, and wrote notes on the inside of the crate to keep the robot company while it's away.

I signed the crate since everyone else was doing that, but the robot really doesn't have feelings. It's not that I don't like the robot, I just don't think it's appropriate to spend time talking to the robot right before it ships.

[Artless_Grace]

If our robot was a bit more soft, I think I'd hug it. But I don't think that matters, because I've already hugged it when no one was looking... >.>

Err...

I'd say, the only thing I don't like about our robot is that hugging it is an accomplishment, and we needed a bit more defense. I'm constantly afraid someone is going to stick an arm in one of our conveyor belts and snap us in half. I was also disappointed that none of my ideas were included on the robot. But as long as its functioning, ^_^ Its okeday with me.

Now, if only we could attach wings..

[Dan Petrovic]

Our robot could definately be better.

If you don't have your camera aiming your shooter, then you're in trouble. In our first practice match we fell over and our Horizonal Aiming was busted. In our last practice match our camera got busted, yet we still scored a bunch of balls by eye.

We go into the qualification rounds today thinking we can score a lot.

Out of around 70 shots made today, we scored one.

I'm extremely happy with every component on our robot. The rollers suck up balls in the blink of an eye, the storage keeps them from getting clogged, and the shooter is the most consistant thing I've ever seen, however, in competition we can't do anything. We can push. We have strong two speed transmissions with four wheel drive so that keeps us from being completely useless.

We are making big changes starting tomorrow and hopefully finishing during the Practice rounds of Nationals. Scrapping the shooter and turning our robot strictly into a side scoring bot. We are still keeping every thing we take off for demonstration purposes. Flying balls are much more interesting than rolling balls.

It's an amazing robot. An accurate shooter, fast rollers, and smooth storage, but in competition we can't use any of that.

[phrontist]

This is the best robot we've ever built. Last year's was a great machine, but didn't really play the game too well (well, in the offeseason it did...). The year before we were clueless (but enthusiastic!) and had no hope of getting anywhere. This year, we were more organized and purposeful in our work than ever before.

As far as what you're describing:

I've been there, I think we all have. But you can take comfort in knowing that you fought the good fight (Unless you didn't, but I'm sure you did...) and everything that robot has or doesn't have is the direct result of your efforts. FIRST hasn't really taught me a great deal technically, but it has taught me a lot about working with other people and the discipline and organization required to work efficiently. So try to look on the bright side, or the ambiguous possibilities of the future!

Failing that, take solace in having come up with a great thread topic. ;)

[akshar]

i know i have already posted, but for some reason, i can not edit my old post so here it goes:

i saw our bot perform today and all i can say is: different
Regit was built to shoot, very inconsistent, so we play defense, and we are THE best, so how do i feel about my robot? Regit is the best and i wouldnt trade him for any other robot

[rachal]

Finding out the shooter didn't work after finally getting to test the day before ship wasn't so fun. (Tiny range, and the balls just flopped to the side sometimes.)

Redesigning, building, and testing it by the end of the next day -- and finding out that it was about an order of magnitude more accurate and powerful -- WAS pretty fun. :yikes:

[Rick TYler]

Well... we just went 3-7 at PNW, and the 8th place alliance picked a BLT* over us to be their third and final alliance partner, so this isn't a good time to talk about your question.

* Brave Little Toaster -- a kitbot with no game systems at all. A box on wheels. In this case, a box on wheels that lasted about 1-1/2 minutes of the first Finals match before dropping a transmission and a big handful of chain on the ground. We posted up against the best bots in our tournament for ten matches without anything breaking and a BLT is chosen instead of use. Six-wheel-drive, 4x4 aluminum square tube frame, drives up the ramp at any angle, occasionally scores the center goal in auto, and we get left at home while a transmission-coughing toaster goes to the prom. But I'm not bitter. Really. :) Just wait 'til next year. (Yes, I am a lifelong Dodger fan -- can you tell?).

[Petey]

Um...well, I'm an alum, but 1073's robot was somewhat subpar. We graduated almost our entire team last year (80% of the team is freshman this year), and there were some power struggles within the team this year, so we ended up building a robot that barely worked (it broke in 5 or 6 out of the 9 matches).

That said...by some crazy, I mean INSANE good luck, we still ranked 11th and grabbed the 6th seed. It was pretty surreal...and it gave the newbies a taste of the playoffs.

Still...I mean, we're a 4 year old team, and we've been to the finals every year, so I guess I can't complain. But I don't know if we've ever built--or even tried to build--a really dominating type bot. We usually just build a variation on a plow, because of KISS. And only in 2003 did that work really well, because we could herd balls better than anyone else and our two human players had unheard of accuracy.

So I'm gonna keep in touch with the team and see what they continue to do. And OP, I feel your pain about your last year in FIRST. If you help try to start up a new team somewhere, it helps ease it.

--Petey

[Dillon Compton]

I absolutely feel your pain.

We started the year off very well; we came up with a design and roughed out concepts very quickly, did research and prototyping and everything. Thats when the whole thing stalled; access to our money was a major issue, and we didnt get to order any parts we needed until middle of week 2, at the earliest. During our delay, much of the team lost sight of the original design, and we sacrificed at least a weeks worth of build time pursuing complicated designs we had decided against from the beginning. This left us with about three weeks in which to build a robot- we almost did it, and were proud of it- then we weighed our robot. we realized, after projecting the weight of electronics and additional components that we needed, we would be 20+ lbs overweight. So, at 11pm on Saturday the 18th of February, we completly redesigned the thing. Our issue was that we are very weight conscientious usually, EVERYTHING was already speedholed, and we couldent really sacrifice much more weight while maintaining any function- sacrifices were made. We began brainstorming alternative ways of regaining function, and continued re-designing and fabricating the 'bot- unfortunately this meant that we shipped the robot at a status to be expected at- and this is perhaps being over-generous- the middle or end of week 4. We have a functioning drivebase(we think), and can play defense if nothing else (and we are 95% sure we can score in the corner goals).

I work on mechanical design and build. I was needed on the physical building of the robot. I helped out, and busted my $@#$@#$@# for 6 weeks on this thing, and monday night, the 20th rolls around. It's about 2:30am, and the mentors are rolling out, I catch a ride home with one of them(my dad), and the status of the robot is 100% untested and 25% unbuilt. This was especially frusturating because this is my second year as programmer and electrical, and the first year in which I really knew what I was doing; I'm confident that given the time to write and test code, we could have been aiming with the shooter, using the gyro, and all sorts of other lovely things.

As it stands now, our robot does not have a single piece of wire on it- that is right folks, I will wire our robot on thursday morning, over at Drexel regional.
Feel free to stop on by if you know how to wield a crimper ;). There is not a single line of code written, because the "final" design is still being hashed out in fix-it window discussions, and the sensor situation is looking grim.


That doesnt mean I dont like the robot- I certainly get frusturated sometimes, especially when I know there are things I could and would do if I had been given the robot to wire and program by the end of week 4 or 5- but I still recognize that, at the worst, it will drive and it will be something that we built with our own two hands. We dont have a fancy machine shop- hell, all we have is a drill press, a miter saw, a grinding wheel, and a bandsaw, plus drills and assorted hand-tools - and we dont have professional software engineers or groups of dedicated parents. What we do have, though, is a group of kids from philly who love this stuff, a very dedicated science teacher/college admissions councillour, a very kind and useful electrical engineer, and a couple of college students. Together, we make this thing run and we enjoy ourselves- despite the occaisional moment of frusturation or tension.

It sounds like you are frusturated, and rightly so, but remember that even if you go out there and score NO balls in autonomous, it's not the end of the world. Everyone always swears that FIRST is their life, and in many ways it is; it certainly dominates my thoughts for 6 weeks, and is at least present the rest of the year. But when you get down to it, FIRST is really not so much about the robot, and actually not even about the experience. FIRST is really about opening your- and the worlds- eyes to the reality, wonder, and challenge that is inherint in science and engineering. I know that before FIRST, for me at least, robots were mystical things that I never hoped to understand; I planned on going to school for law, and being a lawyer. I hadnt even considered careers in math, science or engineering (I am now planning on dual majoring in neuroscience and engineering in undergrad and doing graduate work either in biomimetics or organic computing). Additionally, after dealing with "the build" and the stress of competitions, I will never claim or let it be claimed within my hearing, that "that science competition" or "the robotics team" is NOT a real sport/challenge. This is probably, as Woodie Flowers once put it, "the hardest thing [we've] ever done". And thats the way, uh-huh uh-huh, we like it (uh-huh uh-huh).

If nothing else, remember that you can look down on the field with pride, at something that moves (and no, not everyones robot moves- ours didn't sometimes in 2004), and at something that you built; you said you worked on the mechanical team, as well as programming. You say you are frusturated because you didnt get a chance to program it amazingly with time to test and perfect.

I say be proud, because you stepped up to the plate and built the thing- you did not go hide in the closet and write code, belligerantly believing that you would have a day, a week or more with the robot- you got out there and did what you needed to do.

I still wish we had shipped our robot in a bit more "complete" of a stage, and i'm sure you wish the same, but that doesnt mean it isnt an accomplishment or worthwhile; if you, or anyone, learned something from this experience, it has been justified.

Good luck this year, and feel free to stop by 1394's pit at Drexel or Nationals, or to email or AIM me, if you need some cheering up :o

-Dillon Compton
Team 1394

Edit: Holy crap, that sure is long!

[YonZ]

At my school we have a tradition where at the end of the year the seniors post crush lists from the entire high school career up on one day. Last year, a senior and now mentor put the four robots he was here for up there to.

yes, I testify for that occurance...

It's great seeing it all come together in the 3/4 months that it is the focus of our lives. I love being able to feel proud about our robot and being able to point out the parts and holes and stuff that I contributed.
Having been on my team for three years, I know that feeling of nostalgia you get whenever you lay eyes on an old robot-- it brings back wonderful memories of build and competition, and the many reasons I suffer from robot-fever during off-season.

[Rick TYler]

Dillon's post should be moved to a new thread and made sticky. Great insights. He managed to put things in perspective.

[mrmummert]

Hello all...

Hmmm I mave mixed feelings about the robot we have this year compared to last year....This years robot was a pain to plan, build,make changes to,stay in weight and correct problems compared to last years. But then again it won us the regional so I guess it made up for all the trouble it gave. Fittingly we named it "Trouble".

Last years although it had some upper arm alterations pretty much was built
as planned and have very few problems...even for a rookie robot. It got us thru regionals were we placed 6th and luckly (as rookie all stars) to atlanta.
We've used the heck out of it (we tested over and over again our current 2006 robot auto modes on it until this years was ready) and
used it for demostrations all the rest of the year with very little trouble
again. We called it MB (for Mechanical Bronco) and were gonna call this years
MB2 but as I said...this years was such a pain.......

[Dillon Compton]

Dillon's post should be moved to a new thread and made sticky. Great insights. He managed to put things in perspective.

Hey, thanks! Always nice to hear some good feedback, and I'm honored to be nominated for a sticky :cool:

[IraJason]

Maybe this is heresy, and maybe it's just because I didn't spend a lot of time working on the robot itself (I was doing a lot of other stuff), but I don't consider our robot a person. The rest of our team said "goodbye" TO the robot, and wrote notes on the inside of the crate to keep the robot company while it's away.

I signed the crate since everyone else was doing that, but the robot really doesn't have feelings. It's not that I don't like the robot, I just don't think it's appropriate to spend time talking to the robot right before it ships.

Come on Z man... it has a name, we all love it, and it nearly ran over Mr. Kressly a few times. How could something like that not be human? ;)

I miss our little robot. It was my focus for six weeks and one day it's just gone, picked up by the mystery men who drive those FedEx trucks. As I've said before, I'm proud that our team was able to produce a fully function robot quite a few days before ship date and not have to pull all-nighters to do it. I think everybody on our team (except for worldbringer I'm guessing now ;) ) was both excited and sad to see our first robot be picked up and shipped off. I know I was.

[LightWaves1636]

personally, a little nervous, it's been what now, three weeks since I've operated it and we never tested it on the ramp but once it gets to competiton I think everything we'll be fine. Hopefully.

[RoboMadi]

to be honest, as a team captain I'm pretty much satisfied with our robot. Compared to last year, we did a great job and were able to get things done on time. Even though our robot was not that good in performance at VCU, still we were able to win Engineering Inspiration Award, which counts the most to us. But during the course of competition we kept fixing stuff and modifying it, and now we are pretty sure that we will do good in Chesapeake Regionals.
We lost our first five matches at VCU, but after that we made a comeback and won last three. So we are pretty hopeful.

Also i was looking around the pictures of other robots, and i think each and every team did a great job. Obviously some robots are going to win and some are going to lose, but what counts more is the knowledge we gain form it and how to use it to help people our us, our community.

Good luck everyone with the rest of the Season