FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Hey all,

Team 2980 is once again going to post everything we come up with. We receive a ton of help from the FIRST and Chief Delphi community and want to give back as much as possible.

Our team goes uses the first week for prototyping and design. At the end of the first week we share our designs with the greater community and have them select the design that we will finalize and build. This years plan is to build a robot capable of dumping into the second row, and shooting from the safe zone at the top of the key. From there we hope to shoot for the top and middle row.



We'll try to post some more detailed shots as we finalize the design today and Monday.

Key things and ideas:

We want to use a belt driven ball harvester to convey balls from the floor to the hopper/dump bucket.

We designed the drive train with a dropped mecanum set up using 4 powered traction wheels 2 inches off the ground that lift the robot up so that the mecanum wheels are slightly protected for driving over the bump.

We want to have a pole slapping mechanism for pushing down the Bridge for the end game.

Issues:

The magical dumping ball hopper...

So making a box that can dump seams easy...trap door in the bottom to let balls in but not out, open top for pouring balls out... use a piston to lift the and tilt the box to just over 90 degrees pouring the balls out into the hoop...Uses gravety...easy peasy.

cannon hopper...Balls come up through the bottom trap door, then a piston pushes them forward in loading them into the cannon...Piston retracts letting another ball light up to be fired...also seams relatively simple...

Now we need to combine those two things into one thing...

Aiming...

The community really wants us to use either a camera/ultra sonic detector combo, or mount the kinect on our robot.

Using the ultra sonic sensor mounted on the cannon... The sensor measures the distance to the wall and regulates the speed of the spinning wheels in order to get the ball to go the right distance based on the desired target height...

The camera would be used to detect the reflective square above the hoop, or for our driver to use to line up shots.

Thinking of using a piece of plastic mounted in front of the camera to calculate the range to the target.

Ok...so those are at least some of our ideas...

Team 2980

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

We're having a sad day and could use some advice...

We were planning on using the fisher price motors with the planetary gear box mounted to them in order to power our ball cannon...

Given that they are out of stock, and We're not holding our breath on them being back in stock any time soon...We are going to need another plan.

This is something we have very little experience with. Any ideas?

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Which Fisher Price Motor were you hoping to use? And how many?

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

its not the motor...9013...its the planetary gear box that seams to be the problem. We have two of the 9013s...just no planetary gear boxes.

Sort of hoping they will either come back in stock or someone will have two that they are not using.

I guess...lesson learned...we'll buy a ton of stuff in the off season just in case for next year.

We may go with the AM gearhead motors...

So we are doing some math to try and figure this one out...

We want the ball moving at up to 27 fps when it leaves our shooter...

So...we figure if 50 percent of the wheel speed goes into the ball as it passes through the shooter...

so rotating 8 inch diameter wheels 3 times a second? so basically we would have to have the wheel spin 4 times as fast as the motors?

my brain hurts at this point...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Here is another option, take the first stage (or two, depending on what ratio you want) of plastic gears out of the big plastic FP Gearbox, and you can build a very simply gearbox from those gears. A couple shafts, some bearings, 1/8" Aluminum plates, a little milling and BOOM! FP Gearbox.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Yeah...that is another option we are looking at. We'll post the solution once we come up with it...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Don't worry the planetaries will be back in stock. You could also use a Cim-sim.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Relying on gravity with balls like these can be a dicey thing. If they are anything like poofballs they will get stuck at the worst times.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Ok, so we sort of moved backwards today...The magic bucket hopper is starting to take shape, but it keeps presenting us with new challenges...We somehow didn't notice that the piston stuck through the middle of the ball harvester...oh reality...why do you mock us?

We are hoping to mock up at least one drive train on Monday along with our field elements (we like to build 2 copies of our robot.)

One hope is that if we can get this thing modeled in CAD, then hopefully the actually building of it will be faster...

Here is to the end of week one...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

So we seam to have solved a few of the "magic box" problems... We will probably try to make it out of cardboard during Monday's long meeting.

Thanks for all of the help today. We'll post the inventor files in the next few days.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Cool thread, I'll be following your build progress!

I'm curious, what kind of shop and manufacturing capabilities do you have available? Using the first stage out of the plastic FP gearbox in the kit of parts is an easy workaround for not being able to buy AM planetaries if you have the ability to manufacture transmissions. Here's an example.

I would echo this statement... you can run into a lot of problems if you rely on gravity/momentum to move a game piece. We have a rule for our design team this year: the ball must be compressed against a roller/belt at all times when it is in the robot. That's not to say your design won't work, but you want to make sure you test it enough to ensure it is reliable and won't get jammed.

Highly recommended! Try to get a quick prototype set up for some of the ideas you're not certain about to see if they'll work.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

our shop is a work in progress...We have some tools...band saw and drill press...a mill/lathe combo and some hand tools.

A guy donated a Scratch buillt CNC but it is pretty small and we haven't cut any shapes with it yet. He's currently deployed and never got it cutting before donating it.

we have another teacher who was a professional welder in a previous life. he helps with any welding needs which is amazingly awesome.

As for the gear boxes, we just ordered 2 CIM-u-lator gear boxes...We probably should have ordered four, but this one was of pocket for our lead mentor. we would have had to wait for a PO to process and that can take weeks and he is already getting us all the lumber to make our field elements...

now that we found those and have our magic box set up, we should be back on track on monday.

Again, thanks for all of the help today.

Oh, and "CIRE" a guy from wisconsin I believe told us our wheels should be able to spin at about 2000 rpm, so 33 times a second or so to get the distance we need.

Hopefully the fisher price motors we have will hold up.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Couple of things. Today was pretty productive. We got the backboard framed up and the backboards cut out...We even got 1 hoop in the mail. Probably should have gotten more.

We got the bridge/bump made. Our bridge isn't calibrated. It tips way too easily. we'll have to figure it all out before too long.

One of the Team dads has access to some pretty cool metal working tools. He is going to stamp out our drop brackets with some scrap material at his work. This means we should be able to have a running drivetrain by Saturday.

The frame material gets here this week also. Looking at a busy week.

Finally, we are finalizing our hopper/dumper box. We will need some sort of agitator. Not sure how we'll work that out. Some were thinking we could add an offset weight to a banebots motor. Hopefully that won't shake the box to pieces.looks like if things work out wiht the lid we can poor balls into the middle hoop for a pretty reliable 2 points per ball. Perhaps we can even score during they hybrid period.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

So were really starting to finalize our drawings. We are hoping to put in our last order to Andy Mark tomorrow. :) ( as if)

In anycase, we are still hoping to go with a combo dumper/shooter...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

So I had an idea that we'll need to test in terms of agitators...the KOP fans with 2 or 3 of the blades cut off...

This week has been both good and bad. We haven't been able to work because of snow days, but really we would have been waiting anyway. We need to get a purchase order in to Andy Mark, and due to snow haven't been able to do any ordering. Now our shipping costs will go way up, but that is the price you pay.

The designs are almost completely finalized. We really have some tips and tails stuff with the drawing, but all of the kinematics have been worked out for everything except for the flopper for pushing down the bridge.

now of course we worry...is it wide enough? Is it strong enough? Is it accurate enough? Will it really be able to drive over the bridge?

Oh...the stress!

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Wat motor are you using to drive your shooter?
Does this somehow dump too?

Just curious.
Thanks
R3P0

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

the current plan is to have the bucket at the top pivot backwards and poor balls out the back of the robot. the bucket lid will be 15 inches long and sit 1 inch inside the frame. Making it a 14 inch extension.

For the shooter we are using 2 fisher price motors? Have to check the rules but I think we can use two, driving a cim-ulator gear box coupled to the shooter wheels.

we are hoping to post cad files, but the current drawing is still incomplete and has some issues that need to be finalized before we can do that. Also it is currently 30 some odd megs as a compressed file.

thanks for the interest.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

This is legal, see R48. CIMulator is a nice gearbox, too.

I'm curious, what triggered your change from two horizontal shooting wheels to a single vertically mounted wheel?

Have you considered how you are going to align the shooter with the baskets?

If you could host it somewhere, I'd love to take a look at it. You are taking a neat approach with your robot.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

The current plan:

For aiming we are hoping to have a "slow poke" mode. Basically the driver presses a button on the driver station and that slows the drive motors way down so that she can agle the bot correctly. We want to couple this with the camera...piece of polycarbonate with some markings on it...line the markings up with the backboard and bobs your unckle. Finally would be speed...Two ideas on this.

Simple is we use the markings on the polycarb to guage distance, and then use a shaft encoder to set the speed of our spining wheels based on the distance

Harder...We use an ultrasonic sensor to "measure the distance to the wall, have an adjustable hood, and use computer vision to align the shot using the "slowpoke" mode.

Probably some combination of the two. We have the basics down in turs of programming...

For dumping, we want have the camera swivel 180 degrees, and drive backwards. We would possibly follow the red or blue line down the sides of the key and then squidge over at the burm.

We'll try to get the cad files up by sunday night.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

For dumping into the 2-point hoops, are you considering the fender below the baskets? You won't be able to get right up to the front of the rim without a chute that extends beyond your frame perimeter and bumpers. With the 14" appendage limit a chute will still leave a small gap to the front of the rim.

Or, maybe I missed something and you're going to tip your hopper over so that the hopper acts as a chute crossing over the fender.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Hey TerryS,

The hopper lifts up about 3 inches and then tilts backwards. The lid will extend 14 inches out of the frame perimeter creating a shoot that gets the balls to about 3 inches short of the hoop, about 3 inches above the hoop.

We tested this out, and the balls pour across the gap through momentum.

I am pretty sure this will by no means be easy. We are hoping that we will be able to dump into one of the middle hoops, and if some spill into the lower hoop then so be it...

at least that is the plan.

Really, the pouring hopper method will probably only be effective during autonomous. Pour two balls in for a quick bunch of points, then we can still use our shooter. worst comes to worst we turn into a flying brick and switch back to defence until it is time to balance on the bridge.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Here is a link if you wish to download the complete design of our 2012 robot that we designed in Auto cad Inventer. Sorry this has taken us so long. Hopefully people will find our designs helpful.

Just click on download to cmputer when you get there

https://rapidshare.com/files/2933418676/29802012.zip

if it does not work, let us know

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

We had the same issue with andymark being out of stock on our drive gearboxes, but they should be in by the bext three days

as for your problems., i have seen some teams using the transmissions, not the motors, off of power drills. double check the rules on this but i think the transmissions off of a drill are legal. double check this though.

also, your robot looks a bit top heavy, and excessively tall. maybe consider a shorter superstructure. like this you will probably fall as you cross the bump. also, i dont see another option to lower the ramp. maybe consider moving elements for a lower center of gravity

that being said, you are probably further ahead than we are, but by this weekend we should be back on track. the shooter looks great, and i applaud all teams who are successfully using mechanums, as nobody on my team agrees to use them.

all in all, design looks great, nice to see teams doing robots in full CAD early on. Good Luck to you.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

@ Pmangels17...Funny you should say something about teams doing everything fully in cad...never modeled our bridge lowering device...because of that we had to make some structural changes to be able to add it.

We too are worried about weight distribution. We are going to mount our battery really low in the ANDY MARK frame, and we may loose the whole 2 inch drop because of weight issues which would lower our robot slightly. Our plan for the bumps is to go over them carefully, but you might be right about it being a tipping hazard. hopefully we won't end up on our backs more than anything else, and super hopefully we won't tip over and block the bridge from our alliance team members. We should be moving around by the end of the week, so we'll have a better idea about what our robot can do. Last minute redesigns are not entirely out of the question, though we should probably avoid that as much as possible.

We also moved the pivot point for the hopper down by 12 inches. This makes it so that we are resigned to dumping in the bottom hoop. Having a lift and tilt mechanism was just not feasible given our weight constrains. Our robot will probably end up being a "jack of all trades" as it were...At least that is what we are hoping for.

We should have updated pics and video this weekend.

Edoga

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

For starters...a short video.


This weekend was incredibly frustrating, but to be honest we got a number of big problems solved.

Cameron managed to fix all of the problems we were having with our box. The balls go in, and don't come out until we want them to...But...when we want them to they come out smoothly.

The top roller of our ball harvester is mounted and happy.

The bottom roller is being persnickety, but we will clean up the mounting brackets and the sprocket mount and that should be ok.

Our drive train is assembled and needs to be chained, but that should go smoothly.

Our frame was pretty much done, but a rushed weld broke making it impossible to marry the frame and the drive train.

We tested our shooter for the first time (I know...we are late to the party.) Not getting nearly the distance of other teams, (didn't really expect to) Our current set up doesn't really compress the ball at all. We are planning on adding a pinch point above the wheels so that the ball gets compressed just a bit. We are hoping that that will increase our distance enough to make us somewhat effective.

our current set up using a CIM-sim connected to two fisher price motors. We started out with a 60 tooth sprocket on our shooter, and moved down to something closer to 1.5 : 1...I'll have to get an exact count and some detailed pictures tomorrow.

Also, I think detailed pictures of our hopper are in order.

I guess I was really hoping to be farther along at this point...Oh well...

Edoga

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Looks nice. My team is considering something similar. I know they started to mock something up down in the shop, but I had to miss it for pep band. :(

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

This is our shooter. One of the fisher price motors is missing because we have to make a run to the hardware store to find new mounting screws. While the chain was mounted about a minute before this picture was taken, we pulled it off because one of the fisher price motors had worked its way loose and the screw was missing...Guess it is time for some thread locker blue.



This is our base. We might have to add a metal plate to the front to keep the frame from toeing in, which would be a nightmare. The upper frame bolts to it and has gussets to stiffen up the chassis. On this one we will have to wait and see what modifications are needed.

We still need to add chains...We spent the better part of Sunday and again today cutting spacers to line the wheels up so the chains won't be stressed. Then we ran out of half and master links...

We are also redoing our ball harvester rollers...Couldn't seam to keep the chain on.

I'll try to take some detailed picks of our hopper during tomorrow's build session.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

I went to weigh the robot and was sad to see that I had lost some weight. :-p As it stands now we are at about 100 pounds. We still need to add a couple things, but I think we will be fine on that front. I am in love with autodesk inventor. I'm sure Solid Works is just fine, but I am now familiar enough with autodesk that I can work pretty quickly. We even have a few team members who are getting good at it also! makes me happy.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

wow. That looks really nice. We are just starting work trying to install our ball manipulation stuff, which might be a bit of a challenge due to our lack of CAD. A couple of us have a bit of experience with it, be we are kept busy with more urgent things...

A quick question: I notice you left those little bits of the (front?) of your frame on (the ones pointing inward) when you opened it up. Any specific reason for that? We cut ours off flush with the wheel well area, I was told by another team member that ours should be OK according to the rules...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

@ Aeniug2...You should be fine. We just figured since our bumper backing had to be 8 inches having the frame behind it wouldn't hurt. Based on my interpretation of the rules you should be fine provided the bit of bumper backing doesn't stick past the frame by more than one inch...
We too are at the ball manipulator bit. Our polychord belting arrived at our local parts shop today so I can pick it up tomorrow...Then once we have the motor stuff all figured out we should be rocking and rolling... At least that is the idea.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Here are some more pics...It is strange how you work and work and work, and then all of a sudden...ROBOT!

Here is a close up of our hopper and shooter wheels.


So one piston can be used to shoot balls.


The other piston can tip the whole bucket and pour balls into the bottom hoop.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

2980 is breathing a sigh of relief right now...We finally coerced our ball harvester into working. Our robot can now shoot, pour, and load balls. Now we can focus on programming and testing. So...we are about a week behind. Thank goodness for the practice bot!

We shot video which we will upload tomorrow.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

And here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyyTHg_Rk8E

We tried to weight the robot tonight...couldn't get an accurate weight, but we are pretty sure we are over by a lot...Time to break out the saw...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Wow, looks like it turned out really nice. Congrats man, can't wait to see how it all comes together...

Only wish our team was motivated to work that hard...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Was that at full power?

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

@ dallagd...yeah. :-( We have no idea how teams are getting the crazy long distance shots they are posting. We'll play around with it more after we finish our diet today.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

So today was both good and bad...We managed to break the box...which is good because it wasn't during the competition and we can fix it...though I feel really bad for the kid who did the breaking. He was "playing" with the robot and snapped a bracket off of the bottom of the box...he also broke one of the welds on the side in the process...Again, better now than later.

We also finished a good portion of our robot reveal video! Can't post it till tuesday...not like you haven't already sean everything our robot has to offer, more just the video is a bit involved and the team hasn't sean it all put together yet. It was really fun to film though.


Not sure if we are calling this the front or the back...This is the business end though, where the shooter is.


This is the back of the robot where the ball collector is.

Current weight is 118.5...which by my count is a little close for comfort. Also, we are going to have to rely on others to help us get up on the bridge. We sacrificed this in order to be able to go over the bump safely. (We know...the bridge is worth a lot of points...) We'll see how this gamble works out for us. If we can loose a few more pounds, and can get the weight of the bridge slapper down, we might add it back.


Here is a screen shot from our reveal video...Yeah...thats a pirate...we went all out this year.

Edoga

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Wow! Looks great!
Only one thing wrong..... a distinctive lack of decorative stickers.

you guys are only using one air storage tank? do you think that'll be enough to keep it going?
The cylinder you guys are using looks huge... doesn't it practically empty the whole air system of pressure just moving in one direction? let alone returning?

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

The robot will spend tomorrow in the art room. Though given how close we are to being over weight I am not sure much will change. As for the storage tank, once the sensors and camera are mounted we will see how much weight we have left...I'm thinking not a lot. we can shoot, and if we dump once, then we'll have to spend time gathering balls in order to shoot or dump again. we are hoping we can build up pressure fast enough so that it won't be a problem.

also, I'm really glad to see that someone out there is reading this. thank you for all the feedback.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Aww, I'm sure I'm not the only one reading this... As a matter o' fact, me and a couple other team members had a conversation regarding your bot today.
They keep up on your progress, they just don't reply.

I do think you might have problems with your pneumatics though... Just looking at the storage tank compared to that cylinder, it appears as though it would run out of air before it was even fully extended. But the only way to really tell is testing... TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST!!!

which is what my team will be doing for 22-25 hours this weekend... :)

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Good to hear we aren't shouting into an empty cave.

We sort of have been, lost a bit more weight today although the bot is getting ugly from all the hacking. Last year we managed to get a pretty good estimate of weight from the CAD model...This year we switched to Autodesk, and while I'm sure it is still possible, we couldn't figure out how to do it...Hence all the hacking.

The box is fixed though I am hoping to stop by TAP plastics tomorrow to get some really thin polycarb for us to use as seam tape during Monday's final build session

We are going to add things in the following order until we hit our maximum weight.

1) Camera ( I know...this one is majorly important.
2) Ultra Sonic Sensor...Definitely can get this one in.
3) Bridge Lowering Device.
4) Extra Storage tank. (though if we can't add a bridge lowering device then we'll probably add this anyway.

Currently we can extend the dumper all the way, and we can get a few shots (3 or 4) before the compressor kicks in and things slow down. Remember storage pressure is 120 while working pressure is only 60.

We are thinking in the future of switching to sheet metal for our frame, and one of those super light big storage tanks.

We also wanted to pass the robot off to the art department for decorating...

Finally we should have our practice bot done in the next week or so. It will be functionally the same, but the drive train won't have the dropped mechanum wheels.

This weekend we are going to a practice field...Saturday and Sunday.

Monday we will be doing the following.

Putting Numbers on our bumpers
Sewing a red Bumper Cover
trying to design a super light weight bridge lowering device
cleaning things up (trying to get rid of the ugly)
BOM!!!!! (we sort of suck at this, and we want to do it right this time.)
TIPS and TAILS
Practice Field Debrief(what worked, what needs to be changed)
Build Season in Review Session
Planning for the Robot reveal ceremony, which concludes with putting the robot in the bag for our bag and tag event. (3:00 PM Oak Harbor High School)

Good Luck to all.

Edoga

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

heh, sounds like you guys still have alot to do...
We're still panicking our way through trying to build something to manipulate balls.

Those super light storage tanks you speak of, are they the plastic ones that were introduced this year?

I applaud you for having put in the effort to make a practice bot, we have the manpower to do more, but the majority of the team is rookies, and many of them are not inspired to work, or have such low self esteem that they don't believe they can be good at anything. Any suggestions getting them to work as well as your team appears to?

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Thanks for thinking our team works any better than yours. we have a lot of rookies this year also. A lot of them just won't get it until they see it. We have rookies that will miss a week of build season, then show up and wonder why noone gives them a job. On the same note, we have one rookie that cut out half of our frame, and has been working with our welder to fit all the pieces together.

The thing is, and I tell this to my core of students who get it...You just keep plugging away. Do what you can during the off season to show people how everything works, and if you can take someone under your wing and show them what you are doing, or how to do it...but most importanly, just keep going.

OK...Now for two problems that we are having.

We have a second dead jaguar, No light...no flashing. We are giving it 12 volts, but nothing...The problem is that we now have three working jaguars on a robot that needs four.

the second problem is that we cant seam to figure out how to use victors. We are trying to use two victors to power our shooter. We set them up using arcade drive. we have X fed a constant 0, We wanted to use the throttle, axis 3 on the joystick to control the shooter, but we have never worked with victors before, Does the PWM reauire a powered input? (useing a jumper on the sidecar?

I'll post a screan shot of our code tomorrow.

EDoga

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

We are having problems that I can't explain, and can't seam to fix.

1) Our shooter: Mechanically it works, but I can't seam to get code working to control it.

2) Only one of our pistons is working. We have 3 set up in code, only 2 are currently on the robot. (we lost one to weight issues.

Here is the code we are trying. I'm suddenly thinking someone locked the cRio so that no new code could be uploaded. GRRRRRRR!

Begin.vi


and
Teleop.vi


All of the dip switches on the cRio are currenly set to on, including safe mode. The thing that gets me is that all of our changes should have done something, and they haven't.

Edoga

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

So...figures out what was wrong. We weren't building the program before we redeployed it. Now everything works, except for one dead jaguar. So...at todays practice session we can practice with our shooter.

Tomorrow will be tips and tails.

Note to self...if you carry the robot into your living room by yourself for some late night trouble shooting then you best be ready to carry it back out to the truck in the morning...and you may have to explain some collateral damage to the wife later on.

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Lol, I spent a whole meeting one day trying to figure out why my new code didn't work, and it turned out i never built it before deploying... :P

In terms of dead jags, they seem to hate us this year. None of the older (greyish beige) ones work well. They freeze up randomly, only the new black ones work...

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Robot Reveal Video
 

So how do you reveal an open source robot? I don't know...Here is the video...and it has pirates.

Robot Reveal Video

Re: FIRST Team 2980's 2012 Open Source Robot
 

Heh... pneumatic cylinder flute... Our team encountered this distraction as well... At one point we had a group of 3 going at it, and it was actually kinda cool.

Looks like your bot turned out pretty well, and I commend you on keeping your team well motivated, managing to produce a cool video. PIRATES FTW!

but upon looking at your bot, the realization that our bumpers are WAYYYY too low to the ground hit me like a brick wall... We hadn't bothered to put the bumpers on until the last few minutes before bagging... I guess we'll have to change em at the comp.