how many teams are driving now?
 

i realize that we have two weeks left and this is the traditional time that people's pile of bolts starts to move around the ground....so how about a status check for teams


73 and 1405 both drove today

73 has 3 subsystems still being worked on


where is your team at?

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Our chassis has moved under its own power unfortunately we did destroy both drill motors (not from driving though). Our other systems are still being fabricated and aren't mounted to the chassis yet. If no unforseen problems arise we should have the motors replaced and some of the other systems attached by the end of this week.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We've driven around on our test course. Most of our subsystems are still being constructed, however.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Not driving yet. But we're happy with what we got going.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Though, in previous years (at least '02 and '03, the first two years of my team involvement), our team has not been driving until the last week before ship date, we are nearing that point this weekend. We should be driving by tomorrow or Monday...all that needs to be done to drive is wiring. :D Our electrical better get to crackin'! ;)

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We have nothing done. Someone help!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We've drivin a few times, its been a little shaky at first because we are obviously still making changes to our bot, but both driving and the bot have been coming along nicely.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

just got word from 343 they are mobile

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

team 293 is making EXCELLENT progress. We've got a rolling chasis with our completed drivetrain mounted on it. Our electronics are done. All of our subsystems are done except for 1. Our programmers have done some REDICULOUS things and everything works great. I'm warning u guys, 293 is gonna be a team to watch this year.

P.S What could we be doing with 3 telescoping arms and a boat hook? Hmmm, i wonder.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

296 isn't driving yet, but we just got most of our parts back from Nortel's machine shop today after sending them out two weeks ago, so we should be driving in the next couple of days.

It feels weird, as if we haven't really done anything, since we have absolutely nothing built yet, but we're actually ahead since we have most everything CADded. All we have to do now is put together the pieces.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We at team 365 are driving, and all of the individual functionalities have been tested. Working on all of the integration now, and the negotiations between sub-teams has begun for mounting space for motor, pneumatics and such.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 219 was driving, we had a wood frame driving last week, but we took it apart to work on the final design, basically, yes we are driving around

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We need to diagram and mount electronics. Other than that, we're more or less ready to go, ladies and gents. ;) Stay tuned for teasers in the coming weeks.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

SwampThing is fully capable of driving But There is no program and the controls arent mapped at all So .Not drivng moves in a fairly unpredictable manner tho

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

wow... i am soooo relieved to find out we are not the only ones not driving yet. hopefully tomorrow (sunday) we will be driving. we have 1 of 3 subsystems done (as far as i know). we just recieved our manufactured gearbox, and plan to mount that tomorrow, so hopefully be driving tomorrow. im getting nervous. if we dont drive by mid week, im going to make an executive decision to use the bosch motors and our old motor mounts from last year. good luck

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We've been driving for about 3 or 4 days now. We're starting to hit the chassis up against things and start breaking things early so we can fix them. We just finished up one of our primary mechanisms, and we'll be shooting to get the others assembled in the next few days.

We've come to discover that the moral booster is HUGE when you have a box running around, so we try to get that done by end of week three each year... we got it done about middle of week three. Close enough for me.

Good luck everybody!

Matt

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We've been driving for about a week and a half now .... we determined that our original wheels weren't gonna work .... now we're waiting on new wheels.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

With all the drive prototypes we built in the off-season, we were technically driving the first week. Now we are just putting it on the final chassis with the other stuff.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

if i could be of assistance
feel free: nikolay.roshtainsky@sympatico.ca

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

our robot is finaly moving today, nothing fancy, but i'm happy for what it is after working like mad on it for 3 weeks.
subsystems are in progress

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Well we haven't driven yet but I'm happy to report our robot made its maiden flight today.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

FLIGHT say's you?!?!!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 1057's robot moved for the first time today...although we are using the 2003 edurobot controller to do it :rolleyes: . It was very high performance, however.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Battle Cruiser Operational.
MVRT, over and out.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

I know 870 could of easily moved today, all we had to do was slap a battery in, put the chains back on, and it would of been driving everywhere. But of course, working from 9am-5pm, and the adminstrator making about a 45 minute drive to go see his little girl, we simply didn't feel like it! hehe

696 Status
 

I posted our progress here:
http://chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=218534

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 578 Fairport/Gleason

Robot is online and functioning within normal parameters

Drivetrain is smooth as butter

Auton closed loop internal navigation system takes the robot where we tell it to go

but the most important thing of all, our robot is so CUTE!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We've been moving for weeks now, but we still don't have any of our ridiculous number of "articulating masts" running yet. Most of the problems with the drivetrain have been worked out and programming is coming along nicley. So until we figure out what unforseen disaster will strike us this year, all is well! :rolleyes:

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

358's bot is finally up and running. We're working a bit faster this time, I think last year we had less than a week to go... :rolleyes:

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

The bulk of 857 hasn't even seen the drivetrain yet... hopefully they'll show us some time this week, however our treads won't be in till mid-last-build-week. i'm getting kinda worried...

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

The Dukes (Team #991) have our drive system built out as of yesterday. It looks good, but we won't know if there ar any problems with it until we figure out where we're going to mount our electronics and subsystems. We should have a driving machine on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. We'll post some pictures as soon as the Uncomfortable Hunk of Metal II gets going. This robot is going to be a contender!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We were actually driving a prototype drive base two weeks ago, in order to have something to use for software development. Then it got cannibalized for parts. Since then we've been testing out our software on a skeleton with one drive motor, one servo, and one proof-of-concept armlike thing with position feedback. As soon as the real drive base is ready for a brain transplant, we'll be driving again -- assuming everyone is using the same chart for input and output signal connections.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

team 369's robot is up and running for 3 days now ... finally :D ... now to spend some quality time on the rest of the parts

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 1110 should have a rolling drive train by late Monday/early Tuesday, and hopefully a driving robot by the end of Tuesday. It's good to know that we are pretty much on track with the other teams as far as scheduling goes.

We also have a working prototype subsystem, we should hopefully be getting a working version of that by the end of this week.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 1132 is Movin!
We're currently working on tightening our chain, however. I've skipped it off a few times. But don't worry, we're gonna get it nailed down.
Right now it's moving pretty slick.
We have a few parts left to be fabricated for our arm/plow, and then it's just on to assembly. We're almost there!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

we aint movin and wont be movin for a few days

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

341 went up a stair today. under her own power that's all I have to say. sentence fragments rule.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We let Blondie stand on her own 4 wheels for the first time today...She started rolling away...Does that count?

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 1123 is/was driving as of Thursday. We then proceded to rip apart the miter gear boxes to make sure they mesh right. After much fine tuning the robot is driving again and we are just waiting on the arm guys to finish their 10.5 ft monster.

By the way... anybody having any suggestions to add 50 lbs. to the robot- we are a little underweight ;)

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

in 2001 we were insanely underweight (50 lbs total) so we bolted a huge steel plate to the bottom of our bot. I would reccomend doing that or adding something easily removable so when you discover you need another 10 pounds you won't be stuck with a huge blob of metal welded on your frame :p

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

My initial thoughts are to make that arm a big beefy monster! At 10.5 feet... I can imagine that there could be a lot of bending and torque issues. You might as well beef up the arm and use him defensively!

Good luck!

Matt

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Andy, Mark, Alan, etc. were driving the robot yesterday! I was not there, but I heard that it did an amazing job and was considerably lighter than last year's drive base. Light is good :) I am very glad that we're actually driving this "early" in the build season! :D

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

currently, our drive train and electronics and good...the motor/gear/sprocket assembly is finished...it isn't gonna be touched...at all...the electronics for the most part are done and our arm is gettign there. We paln on having driving tests in a week or so...hopefully less but you run with what ya got...that's where we're at...

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Well, Sparky ISN'T moving. Uh-oh. We hope to be rolling atleast by this Wednesday. Our various devices are on hold untill we get it rolling, but we have all the CAD done for our various devices. Our electrical and pnumatics (*gasp* Sparky pnumatics? What other year have we done that?) work is going good, and I think we'll be at the 422 field for testing on schedule.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

we were driving last thursday but we flipped ourselves going onto the 6" step :ahh: . afew repairs and we'er running again. our second robot is still a distant dream.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We got something that drives.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 294 is rolling, but not driving. We even roll straight (imagine that). We do have a warp in the frame, but we are pretty close to square (As seen in image gallery). Hopefully we will be driving by Wednesday.

-Daniel

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Just got our drive train and out landing gear wired up and running today.

Check out our pics off the whole building process!

http://www.valleytech.k12.ma.us/robo...photos2004.htm

New ones should be added tonight. 2/9/04

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 134 is driving with no problems...just tweaking with ratios...final base

-Pat

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

1405 is now not only driving but climbing the 6", as well as turning on a dime (even when heavily overweighted).

Beat that 73 :p

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

we just got one of our two chassis running this past monday. It should be driveable by tonight...hopfully ;) , but we still have two sub-systems to finish as well as mount and wire for our competition bot. Needless to say we still have work to do and it will probably come down to the wire like usual. :rolleyes:

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

we have the motors runnig, but the key stock isnt in yet.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Ok, not to be rude here, but that's not entirely very GP-ish, and looking at the number of posts you've had, I'm not suprised.

I appreceate your competitiveness, however, you should be cheering on those who have come thus far, escpecially rookies.
Remember, a bot with NO subsystems can still play the game. If a bot simply drives well, It can go far. We even got as far as the eliminations last year after we had to scrap our subsystems for weight.

So, congrats on being a bit ahead, but don't flaunt it here. Instead, congratulate those who have gotten as far as a driving chassis, and try to help those having problems. That's how you're known in FIRST. Not by how well you think your bot can kick everyones butts.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

yes! thank you! we wish we were that far ahead... we just finally got half of our wheels on (which means we probably will have more than one wheel eventually) haven't even looked at our electronics yet.
the kind of help we need is probably some one who can draw out a very detailed schedule. and probably someone who can keep everyone from leaving early and work on something useful.
is there a good way to encourage people to come work on the robot on weekends? the only way i've come up with is buy offering free lunch.
and it still doesn't work. i think our team has maybe 10 people, but the only ones working on it are 3?
have to find a way to chain these slackers.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Sounds familliar :)
Our first year was exactly the same. We didn't even get ours driving properly, so you guys are probably ahead of us there :)
Good Job getting as far as you have. If all else fails, get a driving chassis out on that field. It'll do you justice.
Which regional you guys going to?
Anyway, congrats to those who have just gotten something constructed. I've seen teams that haven't even gotten off the drawing board in time.
Great going to all! :D

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

I apologize for what John said - Even though we are driving, we are still working on everything else. Since he isn't on the electrical or programming he doesn't actually know what we are able to do...he knows that the wheels move and automatically thinks that our robot is better that everybody elses, but I'm pretty sure its not. Good design or not we're still behind schedule...

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We are happy to be dirving on two motors yesterday, did some turn testing in the gym, no trouble there, went to find some carpet. Not as good a story, if you from a dead stop do full forward left and full revese right. It just stalls, (at 150 amps), (get off it quick, havent' blown breakers yet) ordered more sprokets and hope the drill motors, which we just about got on will help. Big issue 2/3s of our mentors and our programmer are off for the whole week end. Still better (I hope) than last year.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Dah, that's ok. I know what it's like to have fellow members like that :)
I'm glad to hear that another VCU team is up and running.
Hope to see you there!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

1037 SCREAM is RUNNING!!!! and we have two dual-motor dual speed transmissions whoowhooooo :D

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

195's chassis/tanny crew is done.. the program is done... now all im working on is a trig function that will allow us to move to any point in the feild with the touch of a button :)

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

we have one sid of our drivetrain running. ha we are waitng for more parts to arive. italso make weird noises

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

team 752 driving, but no code done. had a bit of a setback when we forgot that our arm motor was a van motor...... that is backdriveable...... but, at least the bot is moving!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Due to some setbacks, we are not yet driving. We hope though by Saturday at the latest, hopefully Friday.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We drove for the first time today! :D It is fast.
Drew Hopman
Team 801

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

364 has been driving for about 3 weeks. Since then we have attached all of our subsystems and we have programing left to do. OH yeah we still have to armor it.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 1089 is behind due to a lot of conflict in design, but things are moving along pretty well now. We hope to be driving by saturday, and one subsystem is being constructed now, with another prototyped but not designed.

Pressure, pressure!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

33 drove the drive module for the first time on Wednesday (2-11). We should get the rest of our chassis done tomorrow, and will hopefully test it out for real tomorrow. Subsystems are also coming into place very nicely.

Drive module? Chassis? Aren't they pretty much the same? hmmm.... :D

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

i guess friday the 13th is our lucky day, we drove for the first time today, and for the first time ever, our robot pushed li'l ol 200lb me across the floor, no problem :D were still working on our subsystems, but theyre all close. pics will come soon.

vince

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We drove tonight with all our subcomponents finally assembled and attached. I was scared as heck when I first drove it (mucho timid). Didn't want to break anything... too badly. Second run was great.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We have had are drivetrain done for a week now, but we only started 1 subsystem and have not even thought on how we will manipulate the 2x ball.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We've been driving around for a week now (Saturday, Feb 7th = first drive day). Then we took it all apart and started adding subsystems and extra electronics. Then we'll be super-driving tomorrow (Saturday the 14th). We should have a "major subsystem" (hmmm... what could it be?) added by the end of Saturday. Then our driver will do some heavy duty driving along with human players and programmer (me) to finish autonomous mode and get some real practice. 2 other subsystems will be done soon (hopefully). And that should be very soon as we'll be meeting everyday a whole week (mid-winter break) 9am :D to 9pm :D:D - hopefully (like last year).

The first time we let the robot loose, our main driver, Seth (he's been our only "driver" driver for 2 years - this is his third) cried when he saw the robot turn! It's the first year that our robot actually *turns* ~ j/k, I mean first time our robot turned with approx. 0 turn radius. I'm going to remember that forever - not the turning, but Seth - crying. :p

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We drove for the first time today. It was our first time ever with no drivetrain problems on the first run. The turning was a bit violent though with the bouncing of the tires.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Congradulations to all the teams that are driving, but does anyone have everything (including the auto code) finished? We're having a little trouble but will get it finished (hopefully) in time for shipment.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 900 drove today. All of our current mechanisms are up and running except for the one that we havent received parts for yet. We had our electronics wired and all of the pneumatics ready to go and programmed, we were just waiting on the transmissions to be finished. Just a little more wiring, some parts, and an autonomous code and we will be ready to go.

All I can say is that the driver can have a lot of fun with our control system set up.

-Aaron

you're never done until ship day - and then you're still not done
 

An update from team 948. We're driving again. We tested going up a six inch wall (not staircase, but the the sides of the platform) - and it worked. The robot rattles a whole lot.

On another note...
I don't think that a team can ever be "done". If you have everything you wanted on your robot before ship date (kudos to you if you do), then you'll just tweak and re-tweak, practice and re-practice. You never want to just sit there and say - ok, we're done!

Re: you're never done until ship day - and then you're still not done
 

Correction: You shouldn't just sit there and say - ok, we're done!
After six weeks of working with these nut-cases(no disrespect, I love you all to death) I'm pretty much ready to take a break. Besides, a little rest before competitions(and by "a little" I mean excessive) can't hurt! :rolleyes:

Re: you're never done until ship day - and then you're still not done
 

814 is driving now. And climbing the 6" step. Yay!

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 637 wheels are ready to go.... they just dont have any power :( . I'll be up early tommrow(sunday) to get down to the shop and plug everything in. Best case senario tommrow night well have a driving pneumatic pumping robot with only 1 of 3 subsystems not attached. Good job to all those teams driving and good luck to all the teams still workign there way there.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

Team 1255 got our bot fully opperational yeterday. The drill motor cradle was giving us many problems but we stayed late and got it all worked out.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

drive? we just got our BIG aluminum skateboard done. with 12in pneumatic tires, and i heard its supposed to be electrically driven, but at this rate, not for a while...

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

I am so happy to say that yesterday we did get our robot driving. Though I only got to play with it for a little because I had to go and our mentor was had to take the motors to modify the clutch so it doesn't. Hopefully after President's day we will finishing off the last of our subsystems and be done.

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We have our coding done, we are driving....now 2 stick on our components

Re: how many teams are driving now?
 

We finally got driving yesterday - well, techincally, 12:30 this morning. No problems except for the drills coming out of gear a couple of times, and a couple of belts falling off their pulleys because we haven't bothered to re-attach the flanges that fell off while boring through them. Our Tri-Stars handled the 6" step like a dream.