Image Discuss: Truck Town's Completed Robot
 

that is one of the coolest devices I have seen....I didn;t even think of locking into the rail...not only do you block the ramp but the whole field.....I Hope those arms are strong...and can you get there in auto mode? and how fast can you get there?

That 'bot makes me smile. I look forward to seeing you at nats. The only problem I could possibly see is that the metal poles touching the ground are, um, well, metal, and the rules state that "hard" materials cannot come in contact with the playing surface, but that should be easy enough to fix using some timing belt and some screws.

Good Luck, Roger

This bot is amazing! let's just hope we never have to face you...

yeah, you cant see it from the pictures, but there is a nylon fitting in the bottom of all the "Legs"

Bold statement...
 

Truck Town has made a bold statement with this machine.

I hope you have build it "Like a Rock" because I imaging the beatings Beatty took last year will look like child's play next to full force knocks you can expect if you trap 2 unfriendly robots on the wrong side of the field.

I have a question for the general audience here. Notice that the limbo blockers are in a sense designed not just to block limboing but also to prevent other robots from spinning the Truck Town robot.

Does this run up against the complex rule of what you can and cannot design your robot to react against? I confess I don't have my rules handy but I think there was some prohition against using the limbo bar in certain ways, the specifics of which I don't recall.

Comments?

Joe J.

after thinking about Joe's comments, and taking another look at the picture..... how high is it to the bottom of the wings you guys have? It seems like some limbo bots may be able to scoot right under you in this position.....

Tom

Man, that robot looks awefully like last year's bot, with a few modifications :-D


Anyways, I'm almost certain that mechanism would be used to push against the limbo bar, which is illegal this year. Even if a team has to push the blocker into the barrier, T3 would still be at fault. It looks like the limbo-blocker touches the ground, which violates the metal-to-carpet contact rule. They'll eventually get DQ'ed sooner or later.



A lot of rule violations with this robot. BAAAAAD design concept IMO.

Awesome Robot, it should work great as long as:
It follows the rules
The arms don't get broken
It gets to the top of the ramp and perfectly
aligned in auto mode

Good luck,
Austin

T3 already clarified in another thread that there is a nylon fitting on the bottom of the 'limbo-blocker', so no metal is touching the ground. I'm not sure about the contact with the limbo-bar rule, though ....

Overall, awesome concept! I hope everything goes well for you! Between your robot, and 179 ... yikes! I hope we can withstand the competition! ;) :)

- Katie

Those arms are awful long, a robot running into either side of truck town could generate a lot of stress on the end of the arm pushing against the bar. Should be interesting to see in action.

nice. great concept. hope you guys can pull it off.

Unless there is some thing that is not visible in the picture it looks like you do not have a method to adjust your position laterally. So if you are not exactly centered on the ramp, or you get knocked off center it looks like that would create space to fit a robot by on one side or the other.

I myself think that Truck Town took a bold stance into thinking they may have found a loop hole in the rules. I hope FIRST takes their own bold stance as well- Truck Town is in clear violation of the FIRST rules and must change their design, or face disqualification via DQ1 ("DQ1 An alliance may not gain points by breaking a rule, even accidentally.")

Rules Violations:

GM28 - "Attach themselves to the railings/walls of any field structure."
I believe the wings do attach themselves to the railing.

GM31 - "The outer field barriers are safety features of the playing field and robots should not be designed to react against them. Reacting is grabbing or using the top of the field borders,
the top of the driver stations, the top of the pipes at midfield, and the top of the platform/ramp polycarbonate sides with the intent of supporting a robot or robot part."
The wings on truck town are meant to react against the side of the midfield barrier. I italicized side, because the rule states "top". This is the only gray issue.

You may think this post is a little harsh. In some ways it is, there is a clear infraction of GM28 and possibly even GM31. My concern is if FIRST allows teams to cross into the gray area to much we will have the majority of the teams in the gray zone. My team decided against a design that would interact with the playing field, because we play by the rules. Often we must use our judgment when we enter the gray zone, FIRST likes to call it gracious professionalism. The bottom line is that FIRST will make the final call if this robot is legal. I just hope they make the right call because there will be a lot of pissed of teams who threw away designs just to see the rules allowed to be broken by one courageous team.

You were right, alittle harsh, but glad to hear your take on things. As you stated FIRST will have to make a ruling on this, however I feel that it will have to be done each match, since you have not fully see what the arms are for. I am not sure if it was in your post or an earlier one, but someone mentioned they were to prevent us from spinning, which is incorrect. The amount of traction that we will gain on the top surface should be enough. I hope that you can make it to one of our competitions so that you can see the robot in action.

Again thank you for the comments, they will not go overlooked.