Re: What you DON'T what your robot to do!
 

I was expecting at least a few videos like this one for Ultimate Ascent, but I didn't expect it to be your team, Debbie! I'm glad you were able to recover, and I hope you earn enough points at the Bedford District to make it to MSC. You know it won't be the same without you!

That said, I had to show this video to the young men in my 5th period class today, because I've been recruiting them for my robotics team. Now all five of them are determined to bring their grades up, so they can join next year, because they thought it was a "crazy" fall.

Inspiration by enduring disaster is still inspiration!

Re: What you DON'T what your robot to do!
 

I don't remember if we won that match, but it was scary! Team 2620 was on your alliance, personally I was driving!

Re: What you DON'T what your robot to do!
 

As devastating as that fall was, it really was a team building thing for my team. I saw the true depth of my team, and the positive attitude of the team members made us able to really laugh it off. We were laughing in the pits (maybe to cover the tears), but it was contagious and it helped the rebuild.

We have examined what went wrong, and pieced a lot together this week. We withheld our shooter and dumper because they were too unstable to consistently preform after the crash(es) and we want to rebuild them. I firmly believe the practice match fall pinched a part of our undercarriage which caused the subsequent fall and problems. There were a lot of little things that continued to surface throughout the event.

I am confident (yet scared) that we will be able to get our shooting back to the 3 point level, and secure our climb by Bedford. :) Maybe we took it for granted and diminished the possibility of a fall because we never fell at our practice field. The flexibility of the field does scare me. I wish it were more solid. But, I still am confident in the team. We will climb again. :) (Hopefully without the fall this time.) :) We never got our climb perfected enough to score some discs between auto. and climbing, but hopefully we will be able to try that at Bedford.

I'm glad you shared it with your class. It's a strong message. Any good that can come out of it, whether a needed laugh or some inspiration, helps forget the bad. I shared it with all of my 7th graders, as we talk a lot about overcoming obstacles and not giving up. We are going to make a little motivational clip on it. I'll share it with you when we finish it.

We earned 28 points for states. So, states is still within our reach. Plus we have a shot with Chairman's. So, we aren't giving up yet. I hope we make it! But, we will be there, with or without our robot. So, I will still see you either way! :)

Re: What you DON'T what your robot to do!
 

No, we lost by 3. :( Did you see the picture Dan Ernst took of our drivers? Priceless. I'm sure there were many other similar faces in the stands. Driver Reaction to the Fall

Re: What you DON'T what your robot to do!
 

That picture is priceless!

We we're having similar issues with our practice robot doing backflips off of the pyramid, and we decided last week to settle for the 10pt hang. Wish we we're climbing corners and dumping, but I don't think our bot would survive that type of fall as well as yours did!

Good luck at your next competition!

-Mike

Re: What you DON'T what your robot to do!
 

That picture looks eerily similar to the photo someone took of our drive team in 2007 while our robot teetered and fell off another robot's ramp. I don't have the photo anymore but it ended up at the start of the 2008 Kickoff intro movie.