How many teams made 2 robots
 

team 1596, made 2 robots,, our first one was FIRST legal, then we decided to make a second one so we would have a practice bot for driving and stuff, and taht way our finished product would look better (more pratice, better ideas by then..) so we just took first legal parts off the first bot and put on second,....

was a little more expensive.. especially for a ROOKIE team, but we took the challenge and i think it paid off because we were able to select 2 drive teams outa our team thru a week of testing, we now only use the #1 team, unless one member is gone, due to a incident at great lakes regional concerning 'red-bull' and one of our second set of drivers being a little too 'wreckless' because of it ..


.. . so how many other teams out ther have 2 bots?

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Our team built 2 different robots during the build. (kinda) A majority of the team worked on our new drive base and arm. An engineer and a few students worked on a modular pneumatic arm system, which was bolted on to last year's bot, which we were planning to donate to another team in case their's fails.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

This is an interesting question that was debated here due to the <R14> rule.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

RAGE has 2 robots, the competition and a practice robot, built almost simlutaneously(during the build cycle) and, as within the rules, no changes or improvements are made to the 2nd bot and are then brought to compeition, it's used for driver practice, so we have an experienced drive team that knows how to handle the robot in all situations....



offtopic...post 237 smelly el!
/offtopic

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We built two robots, and almost enough spare parts for a third. We definitely haven't used any of the spare parts, but the spare robot has been a lifesaver. It's great for practice driving, and when we had mechanical issues at GLR, it gave us something we could use to work out those issues between competitions, and then replicate our fixes at the competition.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

1293 built two robots, Ockham and Hockham.

Ockham is the one you'll see at Palmetto--the one that Bharat declared was "some sexy use of aluminum" in that link.

Hockham is similar in that it's a kitbot with some of the same structures, but with only one arm segment that'll raise. (In that respect, he's similar to Bob from last year, but with a better drivetrain and a more robust arm.)

The other night, one of our freshman capped one of the office chairs in our classroom with a tetra, then she tried to lift the tetra off. Hockham's arm held up the tetra and the chair before the belt slipped from its zip-tie attachment method. Quite fun.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We built 2 robots, the first one we built was the kit bot, to check out the transmissions and the strength of the kit bot itself. We decided not to use the kit bot frame but use the transmissions so we used the kit bot to test different wheel combinations and also driver training. The second robot was our competition robot. And we used a third robot, our 2004 robot, for programming testing, which we had to put back together.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Great for the teams that can even afford to make a second robot. I think its a great way to get in practice; we could have performed a lot better with more practice. The problem is budget. Us and many other teams simply do not have enough money for that. How a first year team had the budget to make two I don't know, but it makes for a promisisng future. This year we worked a pizza stand to add up enough money for a second regional to basically use as practice (although we hoped to do well and be in contention). Im curious to know how a first year team came up with the money.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We built to robots.
Our competition robotX-WhAAAt!!! and our practice robot X-Wha-?.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

I think that our team has a fairly generous budget. We could easily buy all of the materials and components that it would take to make a second robot without getting a complaint from our generous sponsor. (thanks Delphi) ;) So why did we choose to make only one robot this year? Because of the human resource cost. If you are a team that manufactures the majority of the robot, be very careful that you do not bite off more than you can chew and end up with less robot to compete with because you tried to make 2 robots.

Also, unless you are a rookie team, a lot of benefit can be had by your drivers practicing with a previous years robot.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

I just can not see how teams can do this! :ahh: :yikes:

Well there is the money, but also the time!

First, money... we would all love to have more, but my team some how manages to get almost nill.

We spend all (sometimes over) all our money on the robot and entrance fees. We have no money to pay students way to competitions etc.

Second, time. I guess the way I see it, spend all your time making a REALLY good robot not two pretty good ones.

Also, as soon as we do finish, which is usually about a week or two early, we spend all our time working on other things, such as our scouting, and of course the drivers are practicing.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

hahahahahah TWO ROBOTS?!!??!?! We have enough trouble making one robot and having it work properly let alone two... I'd say not many...

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We made a second robot after the ship and before competition. It was wonderful for driving but actually it was what did us in eventually.

1) We lightened it. Our wheel mounts held up wonderfully on the practice robot and taught our driver to not be afraid to hit the controls. Then we got to competition and high acceleration bent the lightened mounts very badly

2) We painted it. The wheels on our robot can slide backwards about 2 inches for chain tensioning. The bolts hold the wheel in place with friction but on the painted frame the bolts slid.

So yeah...lessoned learned...test under actual conditions.
I hate it when common sense is right. It gets in the way of the math.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We used last year's control board (since last year's robot suffered a mortal wound at a demonstration at Ohio State late last spring) and built a "JV" robot this year. We had a large increase in the number of participants (from 28 to 50) and there would have been too many people for everyone to get a lot chances to do the actual work in building a robot. There would have been a lot of people standing around watching at any given time.

So after the design week, we had a group of the newer students start work on the second robot. They still worked on the main robot at times, but their principal work was on a second robot. We didn't design this robot to be able to compete in the competition per se (since we were using the old drill motors it would not have been legal) but rather as a learning experience and to have a demonstration robot. It has actually travelled out to elementary and middle schools to build support for the FLL program and has been out in the community for fundraisers.

One idea we followed this year was that the new members working on the second robot were mentored by the more experienced high school team members rather than our OSU engineering mentors. If you have an old pair of control boards, building a second robot does not have to be that expensive. We did buy a second chassis from IFI to use on it, but that was to test a couple of configuration ideas. We could have built the chassis out of scraps and spare parts. With buying the chassis we spent a total of $241.38 on "Minibot." (This includes the removable seat on castors it can pull, allowing it to be the Minibot Human Transporter.)

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Team 1577 from Raanana, Israel built 2 Robots during the 6 weeks building time one for them selves and one for other rookie team from Israel that do not have any help and mentors. 1577 did it also with out any help from outside high school mentors. They won the rookie all star for that and will come to the championship in Atlanta.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We also modified last year's robot to behave very similarly to this years robot. We used the kitbot to prototype drivetrain concepts. We also used 2003's robot unmodified to test other concepts.

So, we didn't make a whole new 2nd robot, but we did get 90% of the benefit for very little extra time.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

we built our main robot first, and then after the build season we whipped up a little one for our programmer to test our autonomous modes on. It was pretty much a big aluminum r/c car, which a camera mount, a gyro, and some wheel encoders. we told a couple of people before the virginia regional that this was our real robot, and they just laughed and walked away.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Buzz, 175, has two robots...driver practice, autonomous, spare parts. just to be more experienced with the robot in general. better now than during the qualifying rounds in natl's.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

i expected a lot more teams (we heard it was very common for teams to make two).. . .. whoa. . i guess thats why our team got rookie allstar :D . .. awsome!.,..

it was a very trying experience with a lot of man hours.. and our practice bot was done in under a week after shipoff (minor touches to the arm). .... and trying to convert our C code into PBASIC (we had a older robot controller donated to us) . . so we could drive our bot around with arm. . .

for the money.. well we are paying the price now. . for we are only at 13/25k to go to the nationals eek. ... we never imagined we would get to nationals.. so we had signed up for two regionals (glr and toronto) <just for the fun and experience.... we are leaving for toronto tomorow .. because that was prepaid (b4 we knew of atlanta) so it would be awaste not to go.. wed only get 10% money back . .. .

... so far our team has used 50k roughly . . . and going to be another 25k so we can go to nationals. . we have some awsome sponsers like GM, convergence, Native tribe of sault mich, LEGO, etc.. so we thank them muchly . . it still amazes me how our team mentors managed to get a lot of that money considering we didnlt have a robot at the time and that was our rookie year, but now it is slightly eassier cuz we can say were going to the nationals.

i should start a thread of how much cash each team had..

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Team 159 Alpine Robotics made 2 robots that were exactly the same and a mini replica of that same robot minus the arm that was radio controled. It was very impressive that they had enough time to to all that in the six weeks

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

The most functional robots ever running around our place at once were three.

We have our competition bot that we see every regional / nationals now.
We have a 90% identical (code makes it identical more or less) practice robot that we see everyday we want to.

At the beginning of the season, we build the kit bot to prototype arm designs and pneumatic systems on and kept the drive base of last year's robot for the programmers.
The kitbot got gutted but the programming bot stayed the entire season.

Near the end, we had our two 05 bots made and the programming robot.

Now we're down to just the two robots: one competition, one practice.

Before every regional, we take the transmissions out (they're drop in), sheet metal side panels, and wheels off the practice bot as our prefab material since all were made during build and havent been touched since.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

MOE has a practice robot, cozMOE. We started working on it immediatly aftert our main robot, MOEbius was completed. It gives our drivers more practice and a bettert idea of what they should watch out for during matches.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

It really is great for the people who can afford to build 2 robots. Most rookie teams can get money pretty easy cause now that FIRST robotics is so recognized many companys give money to the rookie to get them started cause they like the idea of FIRST. But try that afterwards.....a vetran team nowadays gets lucky to have more than 2 sponsors or sometimes even 1 sponsor whether you are a recognized team or not. also if teams had money to build a second robot they would usually use it to have money to start the year after.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

we didnt make two robots, but coincidentally, this years robot and last years are very similar (nobody quite picked up on it at philly...i'll have to get some pics up!), so we practice with it, although it's not exactly the same...

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Actually, most of our practice bots are made from parts scavenged from previous MOEbots. BigMOE, MOEhawk, GeroniMOE only exist today in our memories. :( The one untouchable MOEbot we have built is L'il MOE, the 2001 FIRST Champion. We keep it well maintained and running, and because it is so small (read as "easily transportable"), we use it continuously in presentations to the public to generate more interest in FIRST programs.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

For the past two years, we have built a competition robot and a practice robot almost simultaneously. This is primarily becase we have been using steel for frames and could only get a mentor or parent to come in once in a great long while to weld everything perfectly square for us. Our practice bot is usually at least a few steps ahead of our competition bot so that we can work out all of the kinks before we make a big decision.
Practice bots are also great for getting the feel of driving with whatever drivetrain you are using for the year before you have to ship off the final bot.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

1403 did not build a second robot, though we did strip down last years bot so down to a drive train and a chassis. But next year, I have a good feeling that we will have at least 2 robots, maybe 3... But we have problems currently with production speed and we end up working until the last minute on our primary robot, but maybe some off season work can make 2 robots possible.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Our team does something a little different, actually. Instead of creating a whole new robot, we use our old ones for extra coding and whatnot. The basic stuff. It helps us perfect what we need so that we'll be ready when we upload the code onto the robot. =D

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

wat us daisys did was just kinda took c-channel and made a little control board and used the kit transmissions for the programmers
the only thing it ever did was destroy our side room when the programemrs tried their autonomous mode
it was fun tho.....a little bot just going crazy in the room
i actually have a scar i think (checks side of chest)
yea it still exsits
the bot.....and the scar too but....

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Hmm... two robots... how much better of a driver would I be with extra practice? I wish we had the funds to make a second robot. This would also give us a chance to show it off at the local children's museum while we have the original at competitions, build center, or media outlets. Of course, we could do all of that with the original bot but it would be much easier to use two robots and there would be hardly any problems building the second bot.

...I'll stop dreaming now...

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

team 230 makes a prototype robot and a competition robot every year. we work on the prototype for half of the six-week build season, finetuning all of the mechanisms and attempting to code.

once the design for the prototype is pretty much set, we work on the final robot. it usually ends up to be a much quicker and neater process, and we always paint our competition bot. as you can see from pictures in our site gallery (http://shsrobotics.org/05/index.htm), we start off with a bangedup gray bot, and end up with our orange and black extraordinaire. ;)

of course, once the competition bot has been shipped off, we use the prototype for demonstrations and driving practice. in fact, i think our drive team is at the school right now, doing time trials with the human player. :D

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

our team made a prototype robot this year, we spent the first half of the build season building it then testing it out and practice driving. Then we improved the prototype, added lots of modifications and made the competition bot after we perfected the prototype.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Hey! You guys were 2 spots beside us in the Greater Toronto Regional!

2 bots? We barely finished ONE!! We had to fix things in the last minute, and take our arm off! lol!

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

How about adding the option: Couldn't make the first one work, how the heck would we build a second?

But in all seriousness I'm still hoping and praying that for Cal-games in the fall we could enter two different bots to try out ideas that could feasibly be adapted to 2006 competition considering the trouble we had this year getting our first bot done.

The head engineering lead for our club and I (asst. engineering lead) were discussing getting a second bot built a week or so before we had to ship because we had the drivetrain built and fully assembled, then we looked at the other side of the room where we had a handfull of people using hack-saws and sand paper trying to re-make every machined part for our arm *sigh* there went that idea

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Sometimes it is not uncommon for team to experiment and build a first (practice) robot using Lego Mindstorms. I have seen many teams experiment with a smaller model before working on the actual robot.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

:) A few of our team members (myself included) spent much of the first half of the week of nationals working with the practice robot. (we were on school vacation and could leave our practice field set up) This gave our drivers quite a bit more practice. It also gave us an opportunity to select and train backup drivers. This turned out to be very important to us at Nationals when our back up arm driver had to step in.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We had a second 'practice bot', save that we didn't have all the motors and stuffs attached to it, and insted of our non-working crane, a large lead cylinder sufficed.

Now that the season's over, we're gonna turn it into a lowrider robot with hydraulics to help convert new freshman during orientation. -grins-

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

We just made one robot this year, but with the drive train that we made it looks like this will be the drive train we stick with for years to come( 6 wheel, 2 speed pnumatic shift, 0 degree turning radius). We are hoping in the future to be able to build to robots. if not then are base driver will be able to practice with last years because it will be the same drive train.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Yes and no.

Once the UTC regional was over, we modified our 2004 robot to work with this year's game. We discovered the 2004 arm could not pick up a standard PVC tetra (too heavy), so we made the "Tetra Lite" or "Diet Tetra" out of dowel wood.

We re-wired the '04 robot to work with our '05 control system, and the drivers practiced in this configuration ('05 controls with '04 robot and the "Diet Tetra").

No team I have been a part of has ever made more than one robot. It is usually due to lack of time and/or money.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Our teams (1114, 1503, and 1680) built 4 robots this year... 3 FIRST legal robots, 1 for each team, and a practice bot that we shared. they were all built within the 6 week time limit because we usually had a few students from each team and an engeneer working on the practice bot while everyone else worked on their teams robots.

Re: How many teams made 2 robots
 

Yes, the two robots were made possible by our new CNC mill, which can churn off two identical plates very quickly. The money for the new machinery was from a school district grant of $100,000 which enabled us to retrofit our entire shop and drafting labs.

The mini robot was actually made after the build season, by our main mechanical designer who essentially designed and built our main robot as well. By nationals we had a working arm and tower that was even pneumatically powered (although it had to be recharged from an external compressor).