Competition time logged..
 

What lessons did we learn from 2005?
This weekend is the end of the off-season competitions. How much competition time did your robots log and how did it hold up?
What did you learn in this year that you feel will be important to 2006?

Re: Competition time logged..
 

Ockham went through Palmetto with nothing more than an off-kilter end effector. (Well, I guess it's better than it was--on practice day, it was swinging every imaginable direction.) We then switched wheels and ran it in two parades, plus a jaunt around the campus of USC. (If you come to Palmetto, you'll understand why there's a Facebook group called "People sick of tripping on bricks!") The parades might not be as hard on Ockham as, say, taking it to IRI, but it was several hours of running around.

Other than a couple of bolts rattling loose and one set screw coming out in the middle of a parade, we haven't had any problems. (I don't think we've taken the covers off our arm since we put them on.)

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After last season and Kettering here is what we know about B.O.B.

The new gear box from FIRST is Great!
PVC heated up will bend and twist....and still remain VERY strong.
It is best for us to have very complex parts made off site from the high school by experienced tool makers.
A wedge design base is good.....with experienced drivers.
Having the robot working at parent night (the night before ship) is almost as fun as being finalist in Curie at nationals.

Re: Competition time logged..
 

Robot held up pretty well. One gear fell off it's bearing due to a loose press fit. One chain broke in an offseason due to a very rare circumstance. One section of sheet metal got a good dent in it. Not sure how, but it doens't hurt anything.

The one major "problem" (more of an annoyance really) is that all of our wheels bent due to a design flaw that I missed and a type and magnitude of loading that I never predicted to be such. So the wheels wobble a bit. Surprising considering they were machined out of solid 6061 T6 and had 1/4" thick spokes, but now after the fact, I see exactly why. I know exactly what to do to make sure that doesn't happen.

A couple lessons learned is to spend a little more time thinking about different ways the game will turn out to be played. It was about stacking fast, not stacking high. And it was about avoiding penalties, not fighting the opponent. We didn't realize this until it was too late. The arm was too long and too slow.

Also, not enough effort went into the end-effector design.

Anyway, there is no such thing as a "perfect year". But as long as we know our mistakes and how to correct them, every year just keeps getting better. :)

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Hit the nail on the head Sanddrag. Most teams (ours is the worst) are so freaking excited to start building and designing that they overlook one key element. Figuring out what the game's gonna be like. Hindsight is 20/20, but if we would have really analyzed the game beforehand, perhaps we could have comeup with a better solution. I think this year is much like 2003. Most teams thought they'd stack boxes, but it turned out that you just had to shove them. I think the more exciting part of FIRST is not when the game's introduced, but when you find out if you guessed the game right!

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With the end of Triple Play our 2005 robot has seen, I think 10, if not more competitions, three of which were FIRST events.

Our 2005 robot has also competed in SIX or more states.

I'm do not know exactly how many matches the robot has seen, but I am sure it is near, if not more than 100.

Throughout that time we never had any major breakdowns or complications.

We did have to do routine maintenance such as greasing the transmissions, tightening bolts, et cetera.

The major problem we had this year was with the Spectra cable that never seemed to stop stretching on our lift, which required frequent tensioning.

I do not recall any major problems in which parts bent or broke.

However, our robot has seen a beating and it looks as if it has been through a war. There are many dings and scratches, we also seem to have lost some our graphics including our team number.

I don't have too many complaints with our 2005 machine, even though we struggled to get a robot built this year.

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Team 836's 2005 robot held up through 2 tough regionals and 1 awesome off season competition. The only things that were damaged were our omni wheels, i think we went through at least 2 sets, the only other "damage" was a bent guard which did its job and protected our air tanks and a bent pneumatic cylinder. Other than that everything went great, the kit transmissions held up perfectly. We also learned that 80/20 is extremely durable and very strong. This season really pushed our team to step it up a notch and i hope next year will bring the same.

Keep the awesome games tough F.I.R.S.T and always take things to the next level, we will always be ready for your next challenge.

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Let's see:
Competition time-Two regionals, Nationals, IRI, and another offseason. That's five comps, all of which we wound up in the eliminations. Probably about an hour of run time all told, not counting practice and demos.

How did we hold up? Well, the only things that really required our attention were a shattered acrylic panel at our first regional (replaced with lexan, which is what we really wanted there), the batteries (what else is new?), and replacing/repairing our anti-snag devices. The robot is showing scrape marks, but is still perfectly functional.

sanddrag and Andrew (and anyone else who is thinking along similar lines), try playing the game as closely as possible the day you get it, using various strategies (stacking fast, stacking a lot, rows, etc. for this year), and see which one will win the most matches. Then analyze the results and start designing from there. We've done it for several years, and guess what? It works!

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Our '05 only did 3 competitions. There was our one pre-ship that we hosted, the PNW Regional which we swept (did not loose a match), and nationals in which we were on the 8th seeded alliance, but our alliance finished second in the division.

We have done nothing post-mortum exept a few fundraisers.

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Relationships are everything.
FIRST is like a huge family to me. The teams are like siblings - sometimes squabbling, sometimes arguing, pushing, shoving, wanting to get the most attention. But when the chips are down the siblings are there backing you up, encouraging you to do your best, supporting you in ways you never dreamed of.