The coolest thing in the world!
 

Team 578 - Blue Lightning, had a great time at the Canadian regional.

Thanks to all the Canadian teams for your warm hospitality (we needed it, under the masonite floor was an intact hockey rink - ICE included! :c)

We had one totally awesome match. We were doing our best to block the ramp at the bottom, to keep both robots from the other team on our side

and we got smacked so hard the shaft on our front wheel snapped - and the skyway wheel fell off our Bot!

The driver almost hit the kill switch, but he saw me on the side line jumping up and down, waving towards the ramp, screaming, " GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!"

it took a good 15 seconds, but our 4-wheel-drive-minus-one robot dragged itself up the ramp, leaving the 4th behind on the carpet.

I dont remember what happened after that - it was the coolest thing Ive ever seen.

FIRST is awesome!

And what kind of person says robotics competitions aren't exhilerating. :)

The matches where things go wrong but still end up the right way are the best ones of them all :)

Awesome. As much as people like to complain about the contact element of the games, contact is what puts rear ends in the seats. It's fun to watch, and it gives you an opportunity to fix your robot.

We had a match last year, in our division finals at nationals, when our goal grabber was ripped off the robot in a battle with 469 and was hanging by a thread (it might have been a pneumatic tube). Our drivers and those of 25 still managed to pull out an amazing victory with some great driving and more than a little luck.

we won a match with one of our chains laying under the mesh. Truth, though, I wasn't as thrilled as you. the sprocket was off because we didn't locktite the set screw. we had some good ones, tho, like one match, where the real monster of the day, a team who had been knocking all the boxes down in auton, zipping under the bar with ease, team 547, match 62 from stl.

Anyway, we had gotten together with our partner and agreed that our auton would put us at the bottom of the ramp, waiting for the bins to fall so we could try to persuade 547 that they would look better on OUR side as soon as human control began. Anyway, the programming paused at the bottom, but then a well meaning bug in the program made it continue in a straight line. We hit the boxes just as 547 did. Our robot had more power (same four motors, geared to half the speed) and the boxes shook alittle, but didn't fall one way or the other. It was just us on one side, 547 on the other, and the immobile boxes in the middle. Unfortunatly, our wheels were on the mesh, and they had gotten there slightly before us and had the sticky top to sit on. Our wheels spun, and they won the match. Still, a moment I will never forget. Our pod, 877. I don't know If I am right, but i believe 877 weighed in in seventh ranked. We faced them again in match 110, last of the quals, and defaced them and our pit partner 73-3. So much for strategy, but I was hoping a landslide victory would encourage them to select us as alliance mates. Well, really I was just into the heat of the thing and couldn't see their side very well and thought they were winning, but it was worth a hope. Too bad, no joy here.

My fave moment of the Cdn regional..
 

I think play of the day at the Cdn had to be one by my team in the semifinals(i think it was the semis... that or the quarters) Big Mo, one of our alliance partners had been flipped on the ramp.. it didn't look like they were makin it up.. which got us all worried cause we needed koh to win the round.. well our driver went and rammed into Big Mo a lil... and somehow in an amazing feat, flipped em back over!! It was the coolest ever! We managed to get both bots on top after that if I remember right.. hehe it was so cool!!

That reminds me, if anyone happens to have vid of that, if they could toss that my way, I'd love a copy! Thanks!!
*hugz to all as alwayz*
~Ann-Marie, team 783, "Mobotics"

At the spbli regional I saw this happen at the practice round:
Robot A runs into wall flips itself over.
Robot B runs over Robot A's arm and gets stuck.
Robot B helps Robot A flip back over.
Robot A and Robot B are now intertwined.

We had a similar experience at UCF with the wheel falling off... if you could watch match #101 at UCF on www.soap108.com, im not the best at links, and dont know the exact address of all the movies.... but our DRIVE wheel fell off (2 WS up front) and there were two robots on the ramp. w/ about one sec left we got up the ramp and had enough power to knock the other one off giving us a 5 point victory, or some ridiculously low number like that. It was crazy style up there. I think our driver was about to hurt me b/c i kept yelling at him to get up the ramp not knowing that he couldnt really steer the bot too well....

We sheared off an arm one match. We were just driving along when we hit the lexan and the anouncer says "And 696 has just sheared off an arm!" You could just imaging the expression on my face (I was driving). I didn't even see it happen or see where the arm went.

That match was awesome. The fact that you guys and 25 ended up on the same alliance means that some people didn't do thier scouting. No one should have let that happen.

Re: My fave moment of the Cdn regional..
 

Good job in that match guys. I have the vids but it'll be a bit before I put them up; note that I was also yelling at you guys while pushing and jumping up and down so the camera work is off by quite a bit at times.

Good job 783 and 314; we picked you and you did what we needed.

Awesome! when you do just give me a shout.. my contacts should be somehow attatched to my name.. thanks a ton, I'm thinking of trying to work it into a tech project.. somehow... I'll find a way (maybe hide it in a transition..)
hehe
~Ann-Marie team 783, "Mobotics"

I couldn't believe what happened to your wheel (I was in the driver booth beside you guys). We still won that match also I believe.

Frank,

That was a neat match. If you remember, once driver mode started, a lot of the bins came your way. This was due to a feature we have that we only needed when we were up against you and the bins. Our arm assembly actually pushes out and then upward about 4-1/2" by pnuematic cylinders. This allowed us to flip them over the top of your robot.

Thanks for the kind words! St. Louis was fun.

Our automode video:
http://personal.vallnet.com/mrozar/g.../547_wall3.wmv

Our photo of the leaning tower of bins:
http://personal.vallnet.com/mrozar/g...ckdown_547.jpg

Mike Rozar

We had something similar happen......
In one of our matches a chain fell and I had to drive my robot with only one wheel of the 2-Wheel drive close enough to knock down a stack and i was lucky that I had the arm swing out and hit the stack after i got within a couple feet of it. We would have lost the match if i wouldnt have gotten there.

Re: The coolest thing in the world!
 

Wow...that's awesome...I wish I could have been there to see it:)