Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

Our team has gone through a good amount of effort to keep our tetra grabber a well kept secret until our first regional - Pittsburgh.

Although we probably deserved to win the "most likely to fall apart in a horrifically spectacular fashion" award, or the "best Hindenburg impression" award - The incredible generosity of MOE (365) and the HammerHeads (226) awarded our team for our innovative tetra grabber design!

For everyone who had a chance to see our grabber:

What did you think?

-SlimBoJones...

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

I liked the design of your grabber, but like you said, the arm could have used some help... Overall you guys had a great run at it, and even when your arm popped apart you were able to run with it and do something else instead.

Thanks again for drafting our team in the elim rounds, and good luck to you in the future!
-Chris

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

I thought it was awesome. We had great fun in the last practice match on thursday getting into a center goal stacking competition with you guys. I was amazed when I went over to your pit and saw the arm all back together after seeing it fall apart on the field. And the grabber was sweet.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

The best part about your gripper is watching your hard hat wearing human player run out there and shove a tetra up into the gripper. Unfortunately, it fell back down once, but that is what the hard hat is for I guess. I also like how you can release the tetras independently.

Now if you can just stop that telescoping arm from falling apart (you called it the "Hindenburg Impression" but I call it "Jenga" :) ) you will all set. It seemed like it fell apart less on Saturday than on Friday, so hopefully by Championship time it will not fall apart anymore.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

I didn't watch Pittsburgh and I won't see you guys @ GTR. Any chance of posting some pictures and/or video? :) Steve told me just how cool this system was at FLR.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

To create a visual, imagine team 38 from FLR with their large triangle that you "pop" the tetra into. However, 188 has developed their design one step further and can manipulate more than one tetra inside their device.

Amazing job 188, I really enjoy the design behind this type of manipulator. When choosing alliances at FLR - I looked very highly upon the strong grip that 38 had with their design, in the end we decided to be "picked up" by a higher seeded team.

Watch out for 188 everyone, they have a unique design for placing and picking up tetras. I hope you can get together your "Domino" effect for falling down. Much improvement Sat, or Friday - I would agree.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

I concur! Although it wasn't a hard hat.....it was a hockey helmet.....naturally.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

118, that was a good idea for a gripper.

The human player with the hockey helmet, that was awesome.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

I loved the grabber design, just the lift needs some work. If you made the lift more reliable, you could've been one of the top teams at Pittsburgh

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

Unique and very capable grabbing device. Keep the rest together and you guys will do fine. Thanks for selecting us as your partner, better luck in the upcoming regional in Waterloo - I come by and say hi in Atlanta.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

This is a photo of our helmet. Our designer and mentor is modeling it. Proud to be on Team 188 the style setting team of FIRST.

Photos of our grabber will be released as soon as someone gets them off the computer at school.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

You had me and our teams 2 advisors scratching our heads during one of the last matches of friday when we finally got a chance to see how it worked. The convo went something like this:

Me: Woah, Check out that HP with a tetra on his head ducking under that bot
Mr. N: Intresting...wait, he is going to grab another one,
Mr. R: Wait? How is he taking two????
Me: He is going back for a third! oh wait, never mind
Mr. R: How in the heck are they DOING THAT?
Me: Well, i would guess theres latches that hold both up at the same time, so they have to drop them both on one goal....WOAH! They only dropped one!
Me: Ohhhh, they have 2 sets of clips to hold it in

Our only complait was that it was pretty wild when you spun around! very good idea though!

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

I really liked the ability of your grabber to release the tetra's one at a time. That was something that most of the multi-tetra grabbers could only do with great difficulty. Plus it was just plain cool, particularly when loading. With the great reach on your arm, if you guys can keep it from coming apart you should be able to go far at the Championships. We're looking forward to seeing you there. Thanks for picking us for the elimination round. (We were kind of sweating there after the mix-up with the picking knocked us from being alliance captains to waiting as several teams passed us by.)

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

Your grabber was for sure fun to look at :) we played one match with you guys, and a couple against, and watching your HP load that thing never failed to entertain me. Awesome job guys, see you in Waterloo.

Re: Pittsburgh - Did you like our grabber? Team 188 - The Blizzard
 

As promised, pictures of our grabber. This was designed and built by Philip Wang one of our grade 10 students. When Philip first brought forth the idea I said that it would never work and was way too complex. We continued proto typing other ideas. Philip was relentless and continued to push his idea. I told him to show me a prototype and sent him off. He came back with a crude wooden prototype that seemed to look good and almost worked. He was told to go back and do one in aluminum. After he brought this one forward we knew that we were going with his idea. There was a lot of tweaking and finishing off but when completed we believe that this is the best grabber in FIRST (so maybe I am bias). I was amazed at what Philip came up with and I am very proud of him for pushing this idea and following through. Philip had others helping him from the team and I can say that the grabber is at least 95% student designed and built.