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RMR: TeamPlasma
17-02-2009, 21:17
So this year our robot was mostly redneck.

Most of the frame (after we used all of the provided aluminum) came from old grandstands.

Our lift system utilizes a worm-gear garage door shaft

The brush system to scoop in the orbitballs came from an old shop broom we had lying around because it was the only thing we could find that had the right 'softness' of bristles.

What about you? do you have any silly scrap stories?

Koko Ed
17-02-2009, 21:33
So this year our robot was mostly redneck.

Most of the frame (after we used all of the provided aluminum) came from old grandstands.

Our lift system utilizes a worm-gear garage door shaft

The brush system to scoop in the orbitballs came from an old shop broom we had lying around because it was the only thing we could find that had the right 'softness' of bristles.

What about you? do you have any silly scrap stories?

My old school showed up in their first year with an all wood robot.
People pointed and laughed at it till it started pushing people all over the place and was placing tetras on the goals with ease and they stopped laughing and got busy having to deal with it.
Part only make up the robot. They don't make the robot. Ingenuity does that.

typharn91
17-02-2009, 21:36
i agree with koko about the ingenuity thing and we used chicken wire on our robot and made teh box that the dirver and operator use out of frb(regolith) but the look cool and worked for what we needed

MrForbes
17-02-2009, 21:37
I hope all those parts you used are available from acceptable vendors, so all teams have the opportunity to buy them...????

Anyways, we have a couple two by fours on our robot! right there in the middle of the chassis

Billfred
17-02-2009, 21:42
Whiteboard for 1618. Originally, we had the writeable side up--but for aesthetics, we cut another piece so the uncoated side was facing up and painted it.

(Two of the three robots I've been associated with from Capital Robotics have used the stuff. I honestly don't know how, when, or why they got that much of it, but it works!)

sanddrag
17-02-2009, 21:46
This past Sunday evening we actually stuck a ~19" piece of steel water pipe in our robot, and we'll be competing with that. It was the only strong enough metal we could get on a Sunday night. You'll never see it though. I'd never use it if you could.

Koko Ed
17-02-2009, 22:00
My old school showed up in their first year with an all wood robot.
People pointed and laughed at it till it started pushing people all over the place and was placing tetras on the goals with ease and they stopped laughing and got busy having to deal with it.
Part only make up the robot. They don't make the robot. Ingenuity does that.

Anyways we're an inner city school so it's not redneck it's ghetto. And the most ghetto thing we got on our robot it a hockey stick across the front which is something 1006 does all the time. I don't know what they call that up in Canada. That's Hockey Goon of you or something like that, I suppose....

usbcd36
17-02-2009, 22:20
At the competition last year, we had a problem with the cable jumping off the pulley that raised our ball lifter. We were stuck for a bit, then the captain thought of his Sierra Mist bottle on the table. He cut a strip out of that and attached it under the axle for the pulley, and we didn't have another problem with the cable jumping off again. It's still on the 'bot, and somehow hasn't even worn away that much.

Lil' Lavery
18-02-2009, 14:12
This past Sunday evening we actually stuck a ~19" piece of steel water pipe in our robot, and we'll be competing with that. It was the only strong enough metal we could get on a Sunday night. You'll never see it though. I'd never use it if you could.

Inside the roller(s)?

NickE
18-02-2009, 18:47
This past Sunday evening we actually stuck a ~19" piece of steel water pipe in our robot, and we'll be competing with that. It was the only strong enough metal we could get on a Sunday night. You'll never see it though. I'd never use it if you could.Only One?

Zyik
18-02-2009, 19:43
I see 1388 hasn't spoken up yet so I must do it for them. Thank me later. :P

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/29973

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/29960

Mike Hendricks
18-02-2009, 19:47
I see 1388 hasn't spoken up yet so I must do it for them. Thank me later. :P

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/29973

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/29960

Lucy .. I do believe the thread says "this season".

Either way .. you did forget 2005's Ratchet:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/20259

Zyik
18-02-2009, 19:49
In a thread about redneck materials you guys had to be mentioned. Yes, it went slightly against the thread title, but the ridiculous things you do need to be remembered. :)

Edit: If it works, no matter how "redneck" or "ghetto" it is, more power to you.

Herodotus
18-02-2009, 19:54
Last year we snipped the wire out of an old umbrella because it was strong and flexible.

Edit: Whoops, noticed the words "this season." We haven't used too many strange parts this year. Though during build we used several "redneck" construction methods, most notably using a cleco tool for awhile because if we pulled it out the cleco would have snapped into a tube, and we would have had to cut the tube to get the cleco out.

Kimmeh
01-03-2009, 18:51
We're using paint rollers. Actually, a LOT of them. In the 20s I believe...

ComradeNikolai
01-03-2009, 19:23
PVC for our entire hopper.

Not my decision.

vivek16
01-03-2009, 19:45
We were using a quik-grip clamp to hold the battery on for a few weeks. We changed it the day before ship but hey, it worked. We ran our pre-ship scrimmage with it on. :)

-Vivek

Booksy
01-03-2009, 19:54
Copper pipe and PVC. Not as much copper pipe as last year, but still a significant amount. There's a picture of it here somewhere. We're all about the cheap, all our money goes to the kit, registration, hotels, etc. etc.

Oh yeah and a VHS tape on the control board:)

commodoredl
02-03-2009, 16:05
We chopped the handle off a snow brush and are using it on our turret.
In 2007 I remember needing to put together a camera cage with essentially no materials. We ended up draining a mountain dew bottle and riveting it to chicken wire.

GillSt.Bernards
31-03-2009, 12:51
Wood and Lanyard

Alex_2487
31-03-2009, 13:10
during the long island reginoal we had a promblem with our collection system where the balls with fly our the robot and not land i our storage bin. we spend two days doing all of this complex ways top slove this issue and the last thing we tried was just putting a piece of carboard up and that worked way better then anything esle.

Tazlikesrobots
31-03-2009, 13:35
PVC for our entire hopper.

Not my decision.

Ditto! :) We used it because it was lightweight, flexible and CHEAP!

Billfred
31-03-2009, 19:20
One more to contribute: Gaffer's tape. Lots and lots of gaffer's tape (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/33623). (We used up most of a roll on The Blackout.)

Abra Cadabra IV
31-03-2009, 20:00
Our conveyor belt this year was built mostly out of canvas, styrofoam, and mountain bike tires and was stitched together with dental floss. Which is an upgrade from our prototype belt, which was literally stapled together. :D

Also, our ball-dumping mechanism was literally a string. (I'll post a picture if I can find one; our bot hasn't been shipped back yet so I can't take one.)

smurfgirl
31-03-2009, 20:49
I don't think this year's robot has anything particularly "redneck" on it... but last year, our gripper was made out of driveway reflectors. :D And of course, the rookie robot in '03 was primarily plywood, so it doesn't look as high quality as later years. It no longer exists, though.

GillSt.Bernards
08-04-2009, 20:00
wood and lanyard, hotglue and hope, zipties and zen

DonRotolo
08-04-2009, 20:24
A team I saw at Palmetto used almost an entire grocery shopping cart as their robot.

Ed Sparks
08-04-2009, 23:37
Well being from Alabama....................

We used to put our robot up on cinder blocks (redneck jackstands) in the pit.

But now we "transport" our robot with our space shuttle cart.

:D

GBilletdeaux930
09-04-2009, 00:37
Our '07 bot used a paint brush as a chain tensioner. And a stress ball cut in half acting like a spring.

Jared Russell
09-04-2009, 07:15
Our spiral hopper's center shaft is made up of hairbrushes we found at Walgreens.

And the turret (driven by a friction wheel) is lined with weather stripping to improve the grip.

DiehardCybercard
17-04-2009, 21:23
Does it get more redneck than duct tape ? but honestly... what is better than duct tape ?!?

as far as redneck stories i have heard one from a team member from a time before i was on the team. it might be redneck but it was good thinking.

the story goes that at the competition the robot had some super shifters and allegedly one of them broke. so in order to keep a particular gear a teammate fashioned some wire and pop sickle sticks together to hold a particular piece in place.

lo and behold the robot stayed in gear.

haha

lingomaniac88
19-04-2009, 01:18
Our entire robot was redneck. We used scraps of metal we had left over from previous years and a bunch of zip ties to hold the game pieces in our robot.

I also made a suggestion for next year: build a robot such that it looks like it's made of scrap, but it works really well.

Katherine Lake
19-04-2009, 17:36
I think ours was one of the most 'redneck' robots out there. We're disorganized and cheap and we rarely go out and BUY the things we need, instead preferring to use what we have.

1. Half the bolts and nuts on are robot are metric, the other half are SAE.
2. Our rollers are made out of PVC endcaps and ABS tubing, with long bolts threaded through each side to hold them on the robot.
3. Our hopper is made of wood. The first one we had (that we won the 10,000 Lakes Regional with) was unpainted and signed by the team.
4. Our servo arms were made out of rulers. When they fell off in the finals, we duct taped cardboard on instead. For some team spirit, our driver pulled out a permanant marker and wrote 'General Dynamics' on one of them.
5. All of our wires are held down with hastily done zip ties. It looks like spaghetti.
6. Finally, when we re-did our bumpers at Nationals we ran out of bumper fabric, so we used some of those black Altium bags they were giving out to cover the pool noodle. Oops.

(This is what happens when your robot is built on the impression that you won't make it past quals in your single regional competition. I wouldn't recommend it, hah.)

kc2pix
20-04-2009, 16:57
We used a Wintergreen Altoids container to hold our Accelerometer and Gyro. It had a few wires coming of the side. Our team always has to point out the Altoids box to everyone. A picture of it even ended up in the local paper!:cool: