What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

Two mentors from 3824 tonight after running brutal cycles all day:

Craig: "Boy, I hope our bot stays together"
Lonnie: "I think there are about 8,000 mentors thinking the same thing tonight."

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

First comment from one of our mentors was "well I better go start packing the toolbox"

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

We had to replace a length of chain after every match during Week Zero this weekend.

We're planning on making the switch to #35 chain before our competitions.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

A collective "We underestimated how strong to make the bot for Stronghold, wear and tear is ridiculous"

Five separate systems broke on first practice day...without defense being played

Followed by "We made a Jack of all trades again, we did not follow own lesson last year not to do it all just do one thing the best"

We can do it all hopefully...see if that works this year.

I'll add "Need more practice , less engineering"

We might be doing back to back week 1 for sure and likely week 2...not sure if the bot will survive

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

Every step of the way this year I was thinking "we're over-building this thing". Now I'm thinking "We might just survive..."

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

Aside from our shooter forcing itself free of some shaft collars, we didn't have any mechanical issues from a week 0 practice event.

I think the reliance on half inch hex shafts and bulky bearing supports might have been our saving factor. We haven't snapped chain, nor have we bent any of our drive components. We're also slamming over all the defenses at ~11fps.

I'm concerned about longevity of the smaller bits after six or seven matches. Retaining clips, E clips, and other small consumables tend to wear down, and the spring steel they're made of just isn't made for these types of force.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

I can't believe I let build season distract me from the fact that iHop had unlimited pancakes for a few weeks.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

I'm glad I'm getting a cold today, instead of last week.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

At the end of the first full day hard practice, we had 15 nuts and screws on the carpet...Now to find where they came from... We might just dip the entire bot in a Locktite bath before bagging.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

LOL!! I've got a buddy mentoring a team with an 80/20 frame. I'll pass on that advice. We thought of wrapping our robot in those big summo balloons and just bounce our way thru a competition.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

What component will we break next?:eek:

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

I told my students that we should buy a case of blue threadlocker and sell it at the competition as a fundraiser. After reminding them to go over everything and threadlock it.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

Last year, we saw how playing so many matches in the new IN district affected our robot in wear and tear. Now that we have a real Alliance vs. Alliance game with some rough defenses, I'm curious to see how District bots compare to Regional bots at Worlds. All I can say is if your robot doesn't break something at a competition, you're probably in the minority...

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

Thats what we said in 2014. Lets not.

Re: What every mentor is thinking right now is...
 

Week zero made me very happy that we built a simple robot that could function even when things weren't perfectly aligned... we almost used hex shaft to pivot our shooter and now I'm extremely happy that we used those flexible IGUS bearings.

Still running into issues with wires that weren't secured properly, though... (that's what we'll be working on Monday and Tuesday, in addition to some driver practice).