I kindly asked that if you had any further baseless accusations to make, you do so through a Private Message to myself or any of my team members. Your inability to grant such a small request is noted. Or, perhaps it suggests that you did not even read what we've written.

Maybe we were blessed, but there wasn't a single balding guy on our team last season. What few repairs we needed to do were tended to by the students or, in one instance, myself. Furthermore, to use something as insignificant as that to make such wildly incorrect assumptions about our team and to go so far as to post them in this public forum is ridiculous. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Pictures can be quite deceiving, then. We are lucky enough to have the support of two very well equipped machine shops, with a combined total of nearly 20 CNC mills. These are businesses and are operated by adults. But, if you're familiar with CNC machining, you'll realize that relatively little 'work' goes into producing a part. The machines are programmed in code generated from drawings our students produced. When the parts were finished, the students assembled them, made necessary changes, and addressed problems as they arose.


If you're going to draw judgement after looking at only one source, please take me as an example. By my behavior on these forums, you can very safely assume that I do not train my students as Pavlovian Dogs, and they're not conditioned to respond with, "but we know the robot like the back of our hand." While there weren't as many students actively interested in completing our robot this season as I would have liked, each of those students who made a commitment to completing this machine is well versed in its design and function. They can not only repair it, but explain the concepts that drive its design.

Moreso, if your assertion that simply any student with enough time and the right tools could fix the robots, I don't understand what benefit you'd see in their designing anything.

Your suspicion is based on nothing but hollow conclusions you've drawn from your own misconceptions.

Likewise, you're welcome to visit us at our pit and see what your students are capable of accomplishing. Just because a team is student run and may not have the aid of professionals does not give them license nor excuse to produce something less than a professional product. My students are very proud of this accomplishment, they consider it their own, and they have lost nothing by having the guiding hand of engineers, machinists, parents, and mentors involved in this process. While your students may have earned the satisfaction of nursing a project from concept to completion in a totally isolated environment, my students have learned what it is like to function in a professional environment. They have worked concurrently with other professionals to complete their project.

How dare you try to degrade their achievement, their effort, and my commitment to inspiring these kids in the best ways I know how by making horribly unfounded, incorrect, and childish accusations about our team, its members, and its processes.

No, frankly, I have no idea. Winning doesn't concern most of my team in the least. Our experience has already been amazing.

Once again, I'll ask that if you feel the compulsion to further pursue this, do so via PM. I've cleaned out my mailbox some, in the event that I could not receive any more messages. Do me a favor, though, and stop publicly defaming our achievement with the hope of overcoming your own insecurity.

See you at SVR. Good luck.

Once again, as a student member of Team 810, I take offense to your post. As M. Krass has said, we had not one "middle-aged balding guy" on team last year at Nationals. You obviously saw another team, or are coming up with extremely poor "excuses" to your contentions, which have already been proved false. In any case, if there were four men working on our robot, what would it matter? We have several teachers and engineers on Team 810 who value the robot just as much as the students, because they put just as much, if not more, time and effort into making it work. They have every right to work on it, as far as I'm concerned.

Regarding the repairs of any system on the robot. I'm a programmer and "electrician." I can fix any problem, from bugs in the program, to rewiring frayed wires, with no problems. I also know exactly how the pneumatic system works, after an engineer explained a few things about the solenoids to me. I know how the transmission works, I know how the motors are geared, I know how the chains bring power to the wheels. I can fix any system on my robot, albeit not easily, but I can fix any system, by myself. Of course, I'd need the right tools, and considering we put the robot together with nothing more than wrenches, a few hammers, screw drivers, chain puller/breaker, and various cutting tools, there's not much I need to fix my robot. The rest of my team, the students that are committed at least, have the same degree of knowledge of all of the parts, except maybe the electrical system. This year, our electronics are much more complicated and organized than last year, but since we have all the sheets that detail how it works, I'm sure they could figure it out no problem if me or someone else not knowledgeable in the electronics wasn't there.

You suspect that Team 810 can't fix stuff by our selfs (I'm guessing this means that the engineers and teachers aren't part of the team). Well, if the above paragraph doesn't settle things for you, maybe you can drop by our pits, and me and the other students can show you what we know. Remember, you're the one who doesn't believe me and needs the proving, hence I invited you to come. I want to say I believe you that no one over the age of 19 has touched your robot, but because you can't come up with valid information on my team, and instead resort to unfounded claims, I find it hard to believe anything I see from you.

Sorry if you offended me? Hmm, I don't quite think that cuts it, after you went and told the world that you think that the students (which includes me) of Team 810 are a bunch of incompetent morons incapable of building a professional looking robot from scratch. I don't see how you could be so insensitive as to make such an outrageous claim, knowing nothing about my team. It almost brings me to tears, because of the blatant lack of "Gracious Professionalism" which is so deeply ingrained in the spirit of FIRST, or so I thought.

As M. Krass stated, I know that I, as a student of Team 810, do not really care about winning. Sure, I'd love to come in first place all the time, but it's not something I need to be happy. I'm happy if the robot that I helped to build works. Anything else shows that my team did an exceptionally good job, and that know what we're doing. As a driver, I know what it's like to win, I also know what it's like when the robot breaks, and you know exactly why, and you loose. Don't lecture me on how you were unhappy that other teams did better because they were built by engineers. Last year, Team 810, as a rookie team, managed to get into the quarter finals at the NYC regional. Have you seen our robot from last year? It's a sad sight, I must say. You know how we did so well? Teamwork, teamwork, and, GASP!, teamwork. Everyone worked together for a common goal, trying to win, and we almost made it. We were taken down in the end because we were not able to come up with an effective strategy to beat 358 (Hauppage, a team that helped us last year) and I believe T.R.I.B.E.S. We were the powerhouse robot on our alliance, and we did the best we could, but lost, and you know what, no one cared because we were happy that we got that far.

As M. Krass says, if you feel the need to bash me and my team anymore than you already have, please do so through Private Messages, AIM, or email. My screen name and email address is right below, if you feel the need to continue this, please contact me through one of those channels.

Going back to the topic at hand, does anyone have any comments, suggestions, or questions regarding our robot?

He Speaks...
 

I have stayed quite too long.... I am the chief student enjineer and a very commited student on 810....I feel no need to defend our robot. The work and hardship that i put into this machine cannot be argued through words and a picture. When i break my back working on a machine for six weeks straight i am not thinking about what people are going to say about the bot.....what i can't wait to see is seeing the expression on their face when we wow them....... That is my compensation
+++Though, awards are definitly a plus:rolleyes:

Good job 810. Both in your robot and your mature attitude on these boards.

Re: He Speaks...
 

dabrutforceguy
my team and all the other teams out there shouldnt take any bad $@$#$$@$@ stuff from anyone
we should jus look at all the hard work and long nites it took to make such a wonderful piece of work
yes our robot has gone under the bit of many cnc mills befor but if u take a closer look at the bot u will c wat i and the other more committed students went through to build it
this robot has been my life for 6 weeks. its all i ever talked about with my family and friends and then i have someone who knows absolutely nothing about my team or the work that went into making the bot go and put it down like that
if u havent noticed already i m one of the more committed students on my team. yes i am a "freshy" but i put in more work and time into this bot then most of the seniors and older team members
i broke my bak for 6 weeks every day trying to build this bot and i really dont appreciate wat u have said about it
if u want to argue about this beautiful machine then pm me and i will talk about it wit u
thank u
i personally wont be at the SRV regional but i will b happy anyway b/c i will know that the bot that worked on for such a long time works and moves in a game situation. and that is all that matters.
thank u again
joe
o- jus b/c winning isnt everything it doesnt mean that my team doesnt want a trofy or two:D

I just want to commend 810 on an amazing looking bot.

I was a designer on team 384 for the past three years (now i am in college and still mentoring) and I can for one say that a capable student can do just as much..if not more.. work on a robot than an engineer or mentor.

When i was head of design team my junior and senior years, I spent every waking hour working on the plans for our robot. Hour after hour i would deign subsystems, make drill holes...and only because it is something I loved doing.

I guess my basic point is that you guys on 810 have a lot of pride in your robot and that is something that can not be broken by rude or obscene criticism.

On a side note... what program did you guys use to design in..Personally, I used Inventor for the past two years.

Once again awesome lookin bot...can't wait to see it perform.

Gabe Goldman
Mentor on team 384
Engineering Student at VCU
VCU ASME FIRST Student Coordinator

how much tweaking did you have to do?
 

This is my first year as a volunteer for Team 116, but I'm only involved in the programming and electonics subteams. I was wondering how smooth the transition was from the drawings to the milled parts to the assembled robot. Did you just deliver the files and pick up the finished parts? Very impressive looking robot, well done.

Re: how much tweaking did you have to do?
 

wat do u mean
well once we gave the program to the miller he put the program into the cnc(witch he said was the longest pat in the hole doing he said it took him 8 hours to put the program of the largest piece we gave him into the cnc) then like 2 days or less later we would get the finished piece. on one or two parts we had to give them bak to the miller to tweek. but nothing substantial.:D

It's a great looking bot, but I want to see it in action! I can't wait until Annapolis. I hope you guys will give me the grand tour of the machine :D

Part I
 

I found some pictures taken various times during the build season. Let me show you our great "engineering takeover." I tried to keep these pics to a minimum size so they load fast.



The season began with the students dividing into groups and coming up with different ideas for the robot out of cardboard. As the design materialized, notes were taken and sketched about the various components to be designed.



We worked on the CAD in our classroom. We loaded our Inventor on our laptop, and other people on the team brought their own laptops to work on from home. While one person designed one thing, the other did some dimensioning. With the funds left over from last year, we were able to buy our own brand new P4 laptop.



For the new people, we laid the motors out on a piece of plywood, attached some PWMs and the control system, and showed people how those all work. Last year I was completely clueless about what a PWM did, how it did it, and why it modulates the pulse - this year I was teaching the new kids about 'em.



As the major fundraiser, we made a deal with a local Mercedes dealer to raffle off a Mercedes that was given to us at a significant discount. The way it worked is all the students sold $50 tickets to parents, co-workers, family, local businesses, neighbors, etc. The grandprize winner had the option of taking either the car or half the money that was raised. In this case, the grandprize winner opted for the money. This is a picture of us awarding a check for $13,400. If that's half the money we raised, that means we raised $23,800 with this raffle. At $50 a ticket, well you do the math and see how many tickets we as a team sold.

Part II
 

As was mentioned before, we were really lucky to have the support of two local professional machine shops with us this year. This is us discussing our CAD drawings with one of the machinists - Mr. Price.




We had two machine shops helping us out. We learned from them. At the beginning of the season, I had no idea what a CNC mill was, much less how a mill in general worked (I'm part of the electrical/programming side). Now I've seen them in action, and I think they're awesome tools. That's what this program is about.



Another cool thing we did was we took a tour of Anorad Corporation - an engineering company nearby that makes, among other things, the huge machines that put big plasma tv's through quality testing (i.e. checking every single pixel to make sure it works in an insanely small amount of time). I don't know about anyone else, but I've never seen the insides of a large-scale engineering firm before this trip. Anorad has helped us by giving us the time of one of their engineers. He didn't design our entire bot. Rather, he offered us some advise about how to do things such as get CAD drawings ready for the machinists.

And Last and Most Important
 

We also got the support of an electrical engineer once the building season began. Since I'm part of the electrical/programming part of the team, I learned the most from Mr. Pinter. This is a picture of a wiring run list that was made by him. We have a complex robot this year, and without these Excell spreadsheets, wiring everything would have been such a pain. Before this season, I had no idea how to do something as efficient and organized as this. Though just a few sheets of paper, this method of organization is one of the most valuable things I learned this year.




And to close up, here's some pictures of us working - I'm sure all teams have tons of these.

Anyways, the point is although we had professional help, we didn't have an "engineering takeover." We had some help from the outside, but nothing like what you suggested. Don't get me wrong - I'm not bragging that "810 does this and nobody else - we're so unique!" We're not the first ones to do the activities that we did. I'm just showing you that we WERE involved.

Some teams do everything student-run. There's nothing wrong with that - in fact, taking on the challenges by yourself is really rewarding in the end.

We feel that you can learn a lot with professional help. Don't get me wrong - I don't mean help as in they do all the work. I mean help as in guidance. Last year was our rookie year - we learned what FIRST is and how the various kit parts work together. I had no idea what a mill was, I had no idea how CAD worked, I had no idea how to organize wiring as neatly as I learned. This year, with some guidance, we learned what CAN be done, and although doing it on your own has it's advantages, getting some help let us do what we never thought we could have done by ourselves. I think that's what FIRST is about.

On a side note, we also had tons of fun in the process ;-)

I am more scared of the bots that can act as a bridge OVER that bar you refer of :yikes:

Re: Re: how much tweaking did you have to do?
 

Actually there was a lot of changes that had to be made to the parts. But the simple reason for this is even though we had inventor and cnc milling capabilities, we only had six weeks, and to make a perfect robot from inventor to finished model is impossible. We took a good 3-3 1/2 weeks to design it.....Tolerances were off slightly on a few pieces but only slightly. I must say though, having a cnc milling machine made the majority of the parts fall into place like a building block set. Now if only this one had assembly instructions:rolleyes:

Beutiful robot, of course. I'm curious as too what motors you guys used in the drive train and how fast the 'bot goes. Also did you reverse one of the drill motors so as to get an equal amount of power out of them?