pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

dude I so love the video

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Looks good, that will be a solid 1 point bot and will be able to feed other bots. Congratulations on an awesome robot for your rookie year. My advise now would be to get alot of driving practice in and see if you can find a local mini competition this week.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Looking good. Some advice from a sophomore -- think about what happens to your big roller when another 130-pound bot hits that at a 45 degree angle at a combined closing speed of 10 or 20 feet per second. I would seriously consider some sort of crash bar in front of it. Of course, you probably already plan one and I'm just wasting your time, but it was the first thing I thought when I saw your pic. Good luck!

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Thanks for the advice rick, we are considering it because that could be a problem. When playing defense we will be using the front side and avoiding frontal impacts. But it is 4" schedule 40 and we've hit it pretty hard, team 1083 used a similar design in 2004 and it never broke facing similar impacts.

we are still trying to figure out the best method for putting a guard over it, we are worried that if you put something directly across and it were to bend due to impact and flex into the roller. It may cause the roller to catch and motors to stall. We are definitely working on it. If you have any ideas to help us out let us know.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Dan,
if your not out of envelope yet, just take a peice of angle stock, and bolt it to the front spanning between the peices of square stock. that should give your rollers enough protection, just a suggestion.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

We were leaning towards something like this but the problem is there is no way to mount the angle without it interfering with the roller, we'll probably use angle just have to notch it where the roller goes.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

There are some nice, stout pieces in the KOP that might fit across there just fine.

As for guard deformation into the roller, it's like the steel-toed boots argument. Some people say that they don't like the idea of a steel toe being crushed onto their foot when something heavy lands on it. I say, imagine what your foot would look like without the steel toe. A protection bar may not absorb all the impact, but it's likely that it would leave your roller in better shape than a hit that wasn't protected at all.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

I guess that would all depend if the roller would break on impact or not, if the metal were to deform and jam into the roller, the roller would not be able to spin even tho it would break, it would not be able to function during that match. This is what I meant.

I should really do some testing on the pvc, I'm very curious to how it would respond to impacts. And I've really wanted an excuse to buy a big hammer :-)

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

This is my favorite robot of all I've seen posted to CD so far. Way to go the high road, student built and designed!

Hope I get to see it in person.

Oh, and DJ Kool is one of the finer one hit wonders this country has produced ;)

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Great job for a rookie team. Heck, great job in general.

Just like I thought, it is a garage.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Heh thanks for the compliments and yes dj kool is pretty amasing, even if that is the most overplayed cheerleading song of all time heh.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Awesome robot guys. The only thing I would suggest is maybe see if you can speed up the intake roller. It looked like you guys were pushing balls rather from sucking them up. With 2 fisher price motors powering it you will still have plenty of power.

Good luck
Kirk

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

that looks prey nice. but one thing. that looks realy heavy we just weighted our robot today and it was like 10 lbs. over adn we dont have a clue of where it came from and the base of you robot looks realy heavy. i was just wonder ing if u guys have a weight issue yet

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Actually as far as weight we are having the opposite problem, we were aiming to have a shooter and an elevator. When we had to scrap the 2 programs we ended up way underweight. The robot you see there weighs like 100 lbs, we are trying to devise ways to add weight creatively.

As far as the intake roller, the video may be deseptive but it does suck the balls in due to compression, instead of using raw speed we compress the ball on the intake forcing the ball to find its lowest energy state. Speeding it up would help some on pushing the balls out, but as is we are able to unload 10 balls on the ramp in just under 2 seconds. It would allow for us to push the balls faster and roll them at a distance but where is now seems to be working, we'll deffinately however have to keep this in mind while testing this week.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

http://www.officemax.com/max/solutio...ID=5369 42747

That scale is the one we use. We managed to get it for $100. It has served us very well. The remote display is very nice for weighing large things like the base.

Kirk

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Very solid robot. Probably the best rookie bot i've seen; follows the KISS method nicely. Also, I have to say that you have one of the coolest names ever as well.

As for protection, I would just reinforce the heck out of the mounts, and upgrade to schedule 80 pvc. That ought to be indestructable. Now, the inspectors might not like it too much, so you could mount a piece of polycarbonate shielding on it just to make them happy. This shield could even be velcro'd on, its sole purpose being to keep fingers out of the roller.

p.s. I love the 6-wheel drive. Definitely a solid robot.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Will that netting be considered an entanglement hazard?

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

my suggestion to u is if you are still under weight then maybe strap some weights to the bottome of you robot just to its not that top heavy.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

All great ideas, I had never thought about the safety hazard of the roller ( which is strange because during testing I got my finger caught and it did some nice damage ) so we'll be adding a protector for it, plus the students really enjoy bending lexan lol they get to use the big torch.

I don't believe that the top should be considered an entanglement because it is firmly ziptied down, also its within the envelope and above the robot contact zone. so if someone hits it they'll be touching above the legal contact zone.

For the weight we've decided to add some some more lexan pieces so we are going to come closer and closer to 120. We will be bringing weights to competition, if we come in underweight by a few pounds we'll probably add weight to get closer. I imagine we'll want all the traction we can get, especially because I imagine we'll be playing lots of defense.

1902 really appreciates the ideas, and constructive criticism we've already made some changes and plan to make more the more ideas you guys have the more it helps us, thank you again.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Really looks like you guys did an outstanding job this year.

I would recommend that the robot should be less awesome until i get to touch it, but i feel like i have imparted enough awesome via telephone to allow it.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

I have to agree with Andrew - looks really good; I am very proud of what you guys were able to come up with. So will you all be yelling pig calls at the competition?

Go Exploding Bacon!!

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

that is a great robot!!!!!
what is your drive - train?
What is your basic strategy?- aim higheror bottom feed?
what are you guys better at defense or offense?
what are you doing during autonomous mode?

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Way to keep it simple guys. Looks great and i'm hoping to get to see some videos of you guys in action.

Re: pic: 1902 Rookie Robot and Teaser
 

Well there are some videos floating around, but our drivetrain is basically an andy mark shifter with 6 ifi wheels with the middle wheel slightly lowered to help with turning. 6 wheel tank drive would be its catagorization.

Basic strategy will vary, but in our autonomous mode we'll have a few options, our most succesful so far as been in the first 10 seconds we are able to unload the 10 balls into the loader zone very quickly.

Hopefully we'll be stronger on defense than offense mainly because we don't shoot the ball. However our ball intake and output has proven to be very succesful and reliable, so a combination of the 2 will probably be reached to play most of our matches.

As far as getting balls into the sytem we can do it from the bottom or the top either way is fine.