Yeah... about these boxes....
 

Now, don't get me wrong. I love this year's game, an it seems to respond to many of the requests the students made last year. I like the idea of tese box/containers etc. However, after only a few hours of "testing" (which involved knocking over a tower of them a few times), several of our boxes started ripping and tearing. Thankfully, we were able to save them with duct tape, but how are they going to survive competition? Robots will be knocking them over, and running over them every match, hundreds of times at every competition. I don't know, but it sounds like FIRST will have to buy so many replacements, that it will be an incredibly innefficent use of FIRST funds. Will referees DQ teams everytime they destroy a box by accident? Am I alone in thinking this?
~Hubicki~

DQ is not likely, but as always with FIRST, I would imagine they would try and fix them if they did break and I wouldn't doubt they would have extras. Its something FIRST should worry about.

Our team has been putting the boxes through the ringer and pushing them up and down our ramp without any problems thus far. I've got guys using them as seats in our meetings. We're throwing them back and forth across the room and we've broken through a wall of them on top of the ramp 20+ times with the robot and they are all intact.
'You sure you bought the Sterilite 1730's?

Put them on the ground and have two robots run into them multiple times.

That definitely sounds like 1730's. We've only broken one, but others are showing wear. Sterilite's bins are much more brittle than rubbermaids especially if they're the least bit cold.

Make sure you put the rivets in, as people have reported that they are much easier to break when they are riveted.

wow. we dont have them riveted and still, we are going thru them VERY fast. however, FIRST did say something about planning to go through about 5-6 a match. That sounds pretty reasonable considering the damage ours have been taking. we had to go and buy 15 more today. the others were all dying...

the boxes are definitely less durable than any other "movable" object they had in the past...

soccer balls don't break when they fall.

the bins should definitely be reconsidered for the next competition. 2 robots crashing into a bin will most likely destroy the box. we were just randomly dropping the boxes to calculate the probability of which side they landed on... just around 3 drops and all the white "stress" marks were visible on the bins.

i think the idea of the game is good, but they should have thought of something more durable.

You are all assuming that the intent of the game is to have robots handle the bins as if they were soccer balls, with no concern about handling forces.

That's an interesting idea.

But perhaps the game was designed with the thought in mind that CAREFUL handling of the bins would be advantageous, and one of the "challenges" of the game would be to design a big, fast, powerful robot that could withstand large impact forces while gently handling objects as delicate as eggs...

Hmmm. That's a DIFFERENT interesting idea... :rolleyes:

-dave

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Y = AX^2 + B.... ehhh, whatever.

well
these ARE robots that we're driving
we are going to knock down other ppl's stacks
we are going to knock down the centre stacks
we will be driving almost blindly when our robot is on the opposite side
the likeliness of us being able to handle these fragile bins all the time is quite low.
i'm assuming at least SOMETHING will fall.
i'm assuming that two robots will have the chance to charge up against another one for a single or stack of boxes...

but yes... perhaps designing something with precision and gentleness may prove to be something beneficial..
dunno... we'll only know if someone tries it.:D

I think it would be hilarious if all of the bins in one match were totally destroyed.

After our tests with the 1730s, we also had the problem of breaking bins. I think that considering they decided against Florida for nationals because of cost, and they wanted to make the game fairer for rookie teams, I think this is a very ineffective way of solving that problem. Interesting, though, to use bins instead of balls....

might there be a simple way to strengthen the bins? I bet 2 strips of duct tape in an X accross the inside could really prolong the life of these bins.

I dont think it would be too late for first to announce something like this, another .2 or .3 lbs wouldnt throw anything off too bad.

Its not handleing im worried about, its the autonomous crashing... and everyone make sure to build your robot REALLY strong, like full speed into a wall strong. Drop a bin from 30 feet onto your robot strong.

Greg