Chief Delphi - How do you feel toward you robot?

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Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

Here is a poll for this thread (in another thread......)

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=44798

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rickertsen2

How did you feel about this year's robot?

I am proud of the robot our team built. It's far from perfect, there's still things to be done or modified. But it can score some points, so we are very happy about that.

Quote:

At one point we had 3 differnt people building three seperate designs.

This sounds like you are a mostly-student-build team. I don't want to reopen the student/mentor role thing again. I'll just say that anything that the students build, you have to be proud of.

Quote:

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics.

I see all these amazing machines, and I think, gee, we could'a done that, why not? Why not is because we didn't think of it. FIRST Robotics is not just about building, but also about imagining. And about building on past experience.

Quote:

I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

In the disappointment over not achieving perfection, we often forget that this is the most important aspect. Not what we did, but how we did it.

Quote:

I was really excited about programming this year. I was finally going to have a chance to show off my stuff and mess wiht PID, vision systems etc on a FIRST robot. Well, since our other programmer graduated last year, found that up until 3 days before ship i was soo tied up with mechanical things that i did not write a single line of code.

I think you are in role that can be particularly disappointing and demoralizing. You the sometimes forgotten last part of the team. They pay no attention to you until you get to competition and your programs don't work. You asked for a week or two with the completed machine, but you got 2 days (if even that). Well, that's how it works in life too. If you are the last part of the process, you get the blame when the project is late, no matter how late the parts upstream from you were - I know that all too well from my job. You need to make up for all the mistakes and failures ahead of you. If you do, well that was what they all expected you to do. If you don't ...

Quote:

It all works(in theory ) but i fear we will not get our more than say 6 balls in auto.

And that's 6 more than many other teams will get.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

"How do I feel?! The question is not logical!" - Mr Spock

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

KISS principle really realy does make a world of a difference to rookie teams, remember that and it will lead to good things. But as someone said, no matter what .. be proud... . 6 weeks... read that again.. 6 weeks you designed and built a WHOLE ROBOT and having to teach students! i know i felt the pressure, as i knew how to do the electronics by myself, but having to teach a few gr9s took up most of my time.

so i am proud of our robot, for the shear fact that its a robot, that most people only dream to have the opportunity to play with, and that mostly only large companies get to build! So be fortunate that you get to play with a robot that YOU built!

-kevin

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

[quote=

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics. I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

[/QUOTE]

Hey, the season ain't over yet. You still have the competitions to look forward to, and I am sure that you have learned something for your time that will help you in the future. Remember too, the best looking robot is not nescessarily the best robot.

As for 393, we have had an excellent year in my opinion. We decided early on to work within our engineering capabilities, so we weren't trying to do something that was going to be extremely difficult. Our bot came out looking great, even though we had to drop 8.6 pounds in one day :eek: <that was fun> I hated having to cut up those nice, pretty fenders... but thats the way it goes. Anyway, like i said, i know looks aren't everything in a good robot, but they sure make everybody feel good.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

I think everyone has something they would change on the robot. You now have seen other options, other ideas, other ways to implement things... I'm SURE you've learned something new by looking at other's robots. It's not a bad thing to want to make changes, or think someone else has a REALLY cool way of doing something. It's natural. For me... I wish we had spent more time thinking about using belts instead of rollers for ball feeds. But oh well. We have rollers, and we'll make them work.

So Love your robot, and it will love you.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

I am a newbie, and I love our robot.IT' together and working. I look forward to our 2 regionals.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

nobody can really put thier bot down until they see it in action. you spend all this time on it and you guys are putting some of your machines down. i spent many hours a week on this project and i am proud of our machine whether it is as competitive as i want it to be or not so don't give up yet there is still hope.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

Quote:

How did you feel about this year's robot?

I'm an engineering type. I don't have feelings.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

I don't think that our bot is as (for lack of a better word) finished as it could have been. By the ship date, we were still a little unsure about certain characteristics of the bot and whether we should change them.

heck we'll probably be making major changes to it at the competition....but I still have a decent amount of faith in it.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

I really like this year's robot as compared to previous years. We may not be powder coated or anodized, but the robot is still good looking (comparatively speaking). It has zero wood on it (for the first time ever) and is mostly plexiglass and aluminum. A little tin (yes tin, I'm not kidding) made it on as well as bright yellow polycord. If we get it mounted at VCU, we'll have a pimp fan (it's spraypainted silver and looks like a hunk of metal due to bad spraypaint), we have huge aluminum 54 tooth AM sprockets, and our electricals are nice and hidden. (they're sandwiched between our ball pickup and our hopper) The drivetrain is the best we've ever made (KOP gearbox, 5.7 ft/s, 6WD), and everything was tested before ship. (Not counting 2003 when we were literally a box on wheels, our first time ever) Intrestingly, this team is one of the smallest, with most of the robot work done by five (two of whom don't attend every day, and two students who always come in a but late) along with two mentors, a Chemist and an Industrial Engineer.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

I think our robot is great! I had absolutely nothing to do with the building, as I'm the programmer but I really must say that my team did a great job on it.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

A friend and I were the two primary mechanical designers this year, and let me say that we got pretty attached to our baby. We stressed simplicity this year, and as of right now, it has paid off. You can see a front view of it here
It has a collector on the back, which scoops balls from the floor, and to date has not had a single foul up. On the front, we have a door that holds balls in, and it is simple as well, and again has worked very well in all of our tests. Our Omni wheels are also simple, and also have worked great. Strengths-simplicity, efficiency, durability (check the bumpers), manuverability. Weaknesses-hard to shoot into, only can score on the one point goals, is a tricky drive system (our programmer is dynamite with it, luckily :D ). I think we did well this year, but that remains to be seen at competition. If anyone is at Manchester BAE regional or Boston regional, come check us out.

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rickertsen2

How did you feel about this year's robot? What isn't finished? What are its strengths? Weeknesses?

Me.. Its my final year FIRST as a high school student and I feel a bit disappointed to tell you the truth. We decided to be 'weird' and go with a pneumatic shooter. It is DEAD ON accurate +- 6 inches at the most, but the ROF is approx only one per second due to our hopper design which was almost an afterthought. At one point we had 3 differnt people building three seperate designs.

The camera tracking works, but its too slow for my tastes. I never got the time to tune my PID loops. I have all the bits and pieces of autonomous working but nothing has been tried all together even once. Also, at the competition i am going to have to generate a table of shooter angles vs camera angle to target.

The drivetrain is your typical 4wd using the kit trannies and a pretty low ratio so nothing special there.

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics. I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

I was really excited about programming this year. I was finally going to have a chance to show off my stuff and mess wiht PID, vision systems etc on a FIRST robot. Well, since our other programmer graduated last year, found that up until 3 days before ship i was soo tied up with mechanical things that i did not write a single line of code. It all works(in theory ) but i fear we will not get our more than say 6 balls in auto.

I'm sure that all sounded rather rambly and disorganized. If other people feel positively about their robot i would love to hear their story. What is life like on other teams?

What regionals are you going to? If you come to team 1675 pits, our programmer designed an awesome program that records autonomous. We're going to Buckeye and the Wisconsin Regional. If you email me back, I can talk to the mentor about getting you the program if your team isnt going to a regional we are. I hope this works out for you and I feel your pain. But all you can do is be proud of what you did. This is FIRST and everyone is here to work together. I would love to help your team in anyway I can assist you. If you need anything, give Team 1675 a holler, and we'll be glad to help. Email me if your not attending one of our regionals. If i dont talk back to you, good luck to your team and every team. Cant wait for the fun to begin!!!!!!!

Re: How do you feel toward you robot?

I feel rather mixed, as usual. The thing has a solid drive, one that is fairly gaurenteed to be reliable, but the rest of it was pieced on top of itself. Build the in roller, build the feed roller, build the shooter, tear down the shooter, redesign... It's kind of a partially functioning mess. Looking from the other side of the fence however, it's problems are really quite fixable. Our first practice day will be a nightmare. Our need to build the best robot ended up with the best ideas, but not time enough or stability to build it properly. The first regional will tell all...