Inspection process
 

Congratulations to all the regional competitors this weekend. I was able to watch some of the action from VCU on the webcast. I sure do miss the excitement after being a part for the last three years.

Here are my questions to all the students that took part in the inspection process this week.

1. How was the inspection process work flow?
2. How long did you stand in line for inspection?
3. Was there enough space for inspection?
4. Was your team prepared for the inspection?

Tim Tedrow

Re: Inspection process
 

We came late to the regional due to statewide testing, but they were very very good about inspection. They were able to do partial inspections, and in the weighing and sizing stations we only had one team ahead of us. They can do some inspection in the pit area, and some you have to go to the station for.

Were we prepared? Yes, but only when we were ready for it. Go when you're ready, but be ready before they leave :). It's not very painful, I swear.

Besides, getting a "Passed" sticker is your first victory of the competition!

Re: Inspection process
 

They're giving stickers this year? I want one!

Re: Inspection process
 

What you really should want is one of the "Dave says 'That's pimp!'" buttons.

Re: Inspection process
 

It flowed well for us, exept for a few snaging points. The inspection was very complete, but not very uniform. They made us cover almost all of the control systems in our robot with tape, while they let other robots go with exposed electronics. It took us about and hour to pass inspection the day of practice rounds.

Re: Inspection process
 

After last year -- we made sure our electronics were covered. We lost two rounds last year because 1) we got DQed because our partner "entered" another team's robot (disconnected their exposed battery cable) and 2) the same exact thing happened to us later on after we lost our lexan top on the field one round.

I highly recommend it ALWAYS.

Re: Inspection process
 

If your robot is not ready on thursday can you still get it checked friday morning or thursday afternoon or is it too late?

Re: Inspection process
 

The inspectors will do everything within the rules to get a team inspected before a team's first match. At least that is what is in the manual.

Tim Tedrow

Re: Inspection process
 

Yes, you can be inspected Thursday night (before the pits close) or on Friday before your first match.. Thursday is reccomended!!!
One less thing to worry about on Friday during actual competition.

But if you are not inspected and your first Friday match comes up, then you are not going on that field no matter what!

Inspection is generally defined as:

A Weigh-In / Dimension Check
and
A Robot Safety Checklist (Electrical and mechanical) / Required Elements to be classified as a ROBOT Checklist (Battery - OI - Little Battery)

They will do the inspection in your pits more than likely so you can quickly change something if they see something wrong.
The Weigh IN and Robot Dimension Check will take place in a seperate location than your team pit.

There is a scale and a Lexan Box of the max. dimension of the robot in the Pits to do these tests in.

I think the inspection stickers are new this year. They initial it after they go over the checklist and the weight and size is proven to be acceptable.

Our team was caught on this on Thursday. We got our sticker and were signed off, then another judge came over just to admire our Shimmy mechanism and noticed that we did not have the back-up battery in place.
Apparently that is a new requirement this year - to have that on your robot as well as the full size battery!
Oops... We put it on and were good to go!

Re: Inspection process
 

I was an inspector last year at two competitions. As far as I know, nobody missed any matches. For some teams it got pretty close though! When it got down to only 3 or 4 that hadn't passed, we started stationing inspectors in the team's pit. That way they got stuff checked of as soon as it was completed.

We can't do the work for you, and we may find stuff you didn't think about. But the inspectors will work with you to get you cleared to compete as soon as humanly possible. Even if that is Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Of course, taking so long may be detrimental to your standings.

Re: Inspection process
 

Are there any more STUDENT comments from the three regionals on the inspection process? This information will be helpful for the weekly lead inspector teleconference on Tue.

Tim Tedrow

Re: Inspection process
 

yea our inspection went fairly well, it took about 45 minutes... they made us cover all of our electronics with tape. but there were other robots that had passed that had no tape coverd victors! but what can you do? i had ( by the 3rd try in 2 weeks ) gotten the electronics up to speck, so he had nothing to gripe on there, we spent about a half an hour filling afterwords because he said that some aluminum was "a little sharp".

the one electrical thing that we got caught up in is that i had used some red MTW for the globe motors, and coded it black with a sharpie and some tape. that wasnt good enugh for him. he wanted BLACK wire. so we got in a little augument, and at the end of the day i was taping up red wires...

also we have a little springie hose that provides air to the pnumatics on top of the arm, he said that it could get tangled in another robot; he called over 2 more inspectors and they "rulled" that it was contained in our envelope and so it was okay.

lessons learned: get black MTW

Re: Inspection process
 

Bascily the inspection progress begins when you bring the robot over to the inspection pit box. The robot then gets weighed and put into a transpartent box to see if it fits inside the size guidelines. Once it passes the judge comes over to your pit and goes through the inspection list that is posted on the first website. The judge then takes a person from your mechanical, electrical and puematic team to ask questions about the robot. Ex. Are you using Victor 884 speed controlers? Once you pass you are given a sticker that is placed a visable place on the robot. We got caught on things like the size of our team numbers ont the four sides of the robot. As long as you follow the rules and have electrical, mechanical, and puematic team member that know what they are talking about, then you will be fine. We did not have to stand in line at all, the insection flowed, and there was enough space for inspection.

Re: Inspection process
 

well the wait time was not bad at all. we actually made it threw then had to go back after cutting down peices to make weight, it only took like 20minutes for the whole thing. thats with the cutting lol. our robot JUST fit in the box. i mean just made it in.

Re: Inspection process
 

Everything went well over all for our inspection. but getting the robot into the dimension box was a much harder task for this year they took out the sliding platform which made things a little harder then they should be.