Technokat Generosity?
 

My room-mate and I are watching the SOAP feed live from Chicago, and we just watched a match between 111, 909 and 1042, 201...

It was a good match, 230 QPS for the stang alliance... but the interesting thing is 909's robot.

909 looks... distinctly like the Technokat backup robot, the Mighty Mouse. (the ball-drive robot). Complete with the giant blue and red balls in the rear.

All I have to say, was that it was amazing to see it in usage... and I'm just amazed at the generosity of team 45 that they would let another team use their amazing new drive prototype...

Re: Technokat Generosity?
 

That would be the ultimate showing of gracious professionalism.

We did let them use it, but they can't use it in their elimination rounds, since they didn't make it.

what match number?? i would love to see how it actually worked???

or how bout even better.. a link to it!?

thanks,

but it started at like match 58 or osomething?? whys that?

wow just watched math 56. it had the robot teams 45 under control of 909. pretty good controll on the top of the ramp but not really good pusing power on the top.

The TechnoKats won the Judges Award for thier Gratious Professionalism in letting other teams drive thier robot. Excellent job guys!! :cool:

how did that happen though? did their robot break down? Was it just for kicks? I am soo confused.:confused:

Here is what happend from my view.

On Thursday, we were going about our business, doing some repairs on our primary robot (Mighty Auk). We had many requests to see the Mighty Mouse ball drive, so we would continually pull it out and show it off.

Mark Koors, the TechnoKat engineer who developed this drive base, was at this regional, and he was the one who was showing the ball drive. From what I heard, he was talking to Eric Rasmussen from FIRST. Eric mentioned that there was a team who had a non-working drive base and it was irrepairable without totally new compents. It was pretty much a box with wheels.

So... Mark and Eric discuss the option of loaning the Mighty Mouse to team 909 for them to use. The FIRST folks seem to like the idea. They wanted to give 909 a chance to run matches, since they paid their entry fee.

Then... a crew of TechnoKats: Mark Koors, Curt Hyman, Mike Carmain, Kyle Gilbert, Clark Gilbert, DJ Fluck, and Liz Ryan helped get the ball drive ready for 909. This crew, 909, and FIRST pretty much decided that there was not a way to get 909's original 'bot to run before the end of the weekend, so they made the Mighty Mouse ready by Friday morning.

Before the Q matches started on Friday, Hut Snow from FIRST asked all of the team leaders what they thought of this situation, since it is unprecedented. He posed the situation where 909 could run in the Q matches with the Mighty Mouse, but not in the finals. The teams voted and almost everyone said yes... it was an overwhelming majority. Our team's stance was the same. We felt that it wouldn't be quite right if they ran in the finals.

Tim Railey (12 year FIRST teacher, co-leader of the TechnoKats) and I talked alot about this situation on Friday morning. We worry about the precedent this is setting, and we did not really plan for this to happen. We just had this thing and it was sitting in our pit. Mark was eager to help other teams (as usual), and also eager to see his creation come to life.

Tim and I were up in the air about this... until we walked over to 909's pit at 8:00am on Friday. There were no people in their pit, and we see the Mighty Mouse sitting there. They were just finished putting on the signs for the robot. We saw that 909 named this 'bot "the Phoenix" and they had "thanks to team 45" also on the sign. It was a nice thing to see. At that time, we pretty much said "phooey on the precedent... this is a good thing".

Others who were closer to the situation, feel free to chime in.

Andy B.

First... TechnoKats: Thank you for giving us all another reason why to love FIRST.. generous teams with good technology helping other teams with less.

I personally feel "giving" your neat new idea to another team with practically nothing was the best thing you could have done for the spirit of FIRST. Team 909 knew full-well they had no chance of making it to a match with a working robot, let alone the finals. Not only did you help team 909, you helped every team paired with them from having a 2 v 1 match.

The best part of your generosity has to be match 31.
Match 31 Score QP
Team 0909 | 73 | 93 | W
Team 1055 | 73 | 93 | W
Team 1106 | 10 | 10 | L
Team 0045 | 10 | 10 | L

Beaten by your own creation.. doesn't get much better than that.

Great job guys, awesome decision to let them use Mighty Mouse

thanks
 

Gadget, thanks. Your words are kind.

As for the match, for what it's worth... our battery came disconnected (we didn't think that WE needed to tie-wrap the Anderson connectors together... duh)... as we were pushing up our partner, who also lost power. Needless to say, it was definitely a humbling & enjoyable experience.

Andy B>

Did the ball drive have an auto mode?

no, due to the lack of programming time and resources, the ball drive had no autonomous mode.

It actually worked rather well and had more pushing power than some teams with the stock FIRST tranny. It did make it up the ramp with no problem (not all teams could!) and ran like a charm...

Except it lost its balls one match. All of a sudden there are two balls rolling around the field and I was thinking.... oh no, where'd those soccer balls come from????


All in all, I commend the Technokats for donating one of their robots to this team in need. They deserved that sportsmanship award more than any other team out there, in any regional, ever.

Don't forget Greg McCoy, he took over for me after that drill slipped and went into my thumb ;)

This was one of the best experiences for FIRST people I have seen thus far. Many teams tried to come to the rescue of 909. I discussed with some of the team members options for this regional (rebuilding, begging parts, lending student help, etc.). By the time any of us knew what was happening, their original bot was in pieces. Many of us had spare robots or parts thereof to lend but Technokats had the best alternative solution. I am proud to know the members of such a fine team. Way to go Technokats!
BTW, Andy, on that match on Saturday morning when the balls almost popped out, I saw a couple of feet of chain come out the bottom of the robot. I hope it didn't get too hurt. Forgot to mention it yesterday. Congratulations, as well!

"after that drill slipped and went into my thumb " DJ, I hate when that happens.

Wuss...:D :rolleyes:

Just Awsome
 

To Andy B. and the rest of 45...

Wow, I wouldn't expect anything less from you guys. After watching these boards and hearing about some of the silly things going on with this game, its great to see a team really step up and give another team an experience to have fun with. It may not be the robot they made, but I'm sure it'll stick as a great imprint in their minds of what FIRST is all about. You guys rule.

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

The Ball-Drive wonder
 

I also was very impressed with the TechnoKats in their act of generosity. I was talking with your man behind the mouse on Thursday, and I was very impressed with how simple, but yet how amazing the ball drive robot was. He commented that the team hoped they could let another team use it if they needed it. At that time, I had no idea he meant team 909, but I found that out Friday. Great job to team 45.

I also am curious though, what caused the ball to come out in that one round? I was kind of surprised, but assumed they hit a bump or angle really hard that knocked it loose. What exactly caused that?

heh after i cleaned it out, put a gauze pad ontop and wrapped it in duct tape, it was a few minutes and then I was good to go again, although the Ball drive was almost done and I didnt get back in there :-p

Re: The Ball-Drive wonder
 

I'm pretty sure that one of the "clips" on the bottom of the robot that holds the ball in was not tightened enough or maybe it was just that one of those clips got broken off....I'm 99% sure that is what happened.

body work
 

Who was responsable for 909's bodywork? It was ummmm.. interesting. I noticed wood, some kind of plastic, maybe some metal, and maybe spray painted numbers. How long did that take to build that body?;)

Bingo.

It was to 8 (even at most 24) other teams' advantage to have 909 w/ a bot that could move.

One match though one of the balls came loose and rolled into the scoring zone. That was kinda funny.

I wish I could remember what match...I'll have a picture of it soon.

KA-108 :cool:

It was Match 81. Wildstang lifted them slightly when 909 tried for the HDPE and out came the ball.
http://www.soap108.com/2003/movies/il/
(I won't directly link to the video)