Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

(This post is on behalf of myself; I came down as a volunteer. One from the team will follow.)

Wow, what a competition to have as my first volunteer experience. Volunteering is certainly much different from actually competing. It was such a friendly atmosphere between all the volunteers, and actually made collecting the high volume of discs not as stressful as one would expect. Also, working field reset meant that I could wish my friends good luck before each of their matches, and congratulate them on a job well done after those matches.

Thank you to Team Driven (1730) and Hermes (2001) for putting on one heck of a show again. Team Driven never fails to host an amazing tournament, and I can say that I'm pretty sure that for all the years I'm a student at Rolla that I will be coming back each November to volunteer at this event.

Congratulations to the winning alliance!
Team Titanium (1986) - Wow, what a robot. The Kraken was definitely the most feared robot in this town, completely living up to it's name. Your incredible 7 disc autonomous usually won you the match before the controls were even touched. Then, to solidify those wins, your drivers ran amazing cycles and slipped through the smallest of holes in the defense. It was really something special to see my former team finally get to be on an alliance with y'all.
Camdenton LASER Robotics (3284) - I am simply amazed that teams would pick to defend Titanium over your robot. It was simply a scoring machine, and incredibly designed. As part of the field reset crew, I got to watch your robot up close as it was being fed by your human player, and that funnel for the discs up top worked with such a wide margin for being lined up at the station.
Metro Homeschool Cyborgs (1825) - A steal of the draft, your scoring was amazing and really helped boost the scores in eliminations. The way that your robot moved and scored when either 1986 or 3284 were pinned was such an asset to watching the Number 1 alliance take the win.
BV CAPS Metal Mustang Robotics (2410) - Boy did y'all come a long way from what we started with in season. The new robot Buckbeak did incredibly, as did your new drive team. I have full confidence (and high expectations ;)) that the team is climbing up in their ability to create simple but elegant and effective designs for the up coming season. I can't wait to see what you come up with in season, and know that I am always available if you're ever feeling lost or just need to bounce an idea around.

To everyone else I interacted with: Thanks for one incredible weekend that I'll remember for quite some time to come.

Until next year!

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

Find my scouting notes today. :)

No picking permitted amongst the top 8. Alliance captains pick a 4th team, and can select any combination of 3 teams for each match. No timeouts permitted.

Alliance Selection Results
1. 1986, 3284, 1825, 2410
2. 1806, 3928, 1777, 1982
3. 1810, 1939, 0938, 5013
4. 1619, 3528, 2335, 1802
5. 1985, 1775, 1094, 1769
6. 1764, 4522, 1987, 2353
7. 0876, 3937, 3612, 3784
8. 1730, 3792, 1108, 4455

Quarter Finals
1 over 8 in 2
4 over 5 in 2
2 over 7 in 2
6 over 3 in 3

Semi-Finals
1 over 4 in 2
2 over 6 in 2

Finals
1 over 2 in 2

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

The one thing I was wondering at the event was how you guys at Team Titanium came up with your drive system. If I remember correctly, it consisted of a rocker with a mecanum wheels on one side and high traction wheels on the other? I remember your system had both mecanum and traditional drive systems which our team spent most of the ride out to Missouri trying to figure out (since it was on the scouting spreadsheet).
Before coming to the event we changed out the gear ratio on our climbing transmission from 36-1 to 27-1 (3-1 x 3 stages) and timed it with a fresh battery at 14.8 seconds to the top. In our last Semifinals match against you guys (team 1986) our hooks clicked over the top rung at almost exactly the same time as the buzzer went off I remember. Was an extreme bit of luck on our part there.

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

Of teams that ran octocanum, I do not believe Titanium was one of them...

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

They have omni wheels on the corners, not mechanum. I am assuming they ran it to avoid bounce on turns.

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

If 1986 could still elaborate on why their drive train is the way it is that would still be appreciated. Multiple minds are interested.

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

Our drive arrangement consists of four 6" traction wheels in a wide aspect ratio in the center of the drivebase. These are supplemented by four omni wheels (4" in this year's robot) at the corners of the drivebase. The traction wheel arrangement combines good 4-point traction with excellent turning, without the toddering and over-steering of a drop-center 6-wheel. The omni wheels are very slightly raised, and simply provide the broadest possible stance for stability without inhibiting the turning. There are good views of the arrangement in this weekly update video from build season: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFnnjSXMRVo

Re: Cow Town ThrowDown Nov 1st & 2nd
 

Yes, we did, thanks for noticing.

Pegasus, the old robot, was ruled a total loss after the Razorback Regional. It had about one weld and one hundred zip-ties holding it together. The frame was lower than the wheels (it was almost entirely built with 1/8" aluminum). We decided it would be better to build a new, stronger, more accurate robot with 1/4" aluminum than try to fix up Pegasus. And hence, Buckbeak was born.