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MD State Fair
My team is considering traveling to the NASA event at the MD State Fair this fall. Would anyone who has ever seen it or attended post as much information about it as they can. Thanks!
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All the info for the fair is available here: http://web547.gsfc.nasa.gov/first/20...tate_fair.html
This is the second year we are doing this. We had a blast last year, 11 teams came and it was a huge success. The way it works is that the first 8 days we have all the competeing robots on display and run dmeos to the crowd throughout the days. Teams do not have to be there those days but their robots do. The last 3 days (labor day weekend) we run a full competition. This year we have a bigger tent and a better location. All teams attending will get about $500 for showing up, and you can win more (last year we gave away almost $18,000 in cash to teams and scholarships). There is a $250 entry fee due to Mike Wade at NASA GSFC ASAP, (as of almost 2 weeks ago there were 16 teams already signed up with 24 spots available) registration is first come first serve. On top of this, we are also giving away scholarships to students and the deadline and information is on the website. I'll be there for the entire competition and for some of the days leading into the event. If you have any questions e-mail Mike or myself. Steve |
Do most teams have people present during the week for demos? Do teams bring a lot of people or is it usually just a few select members and the drive team? Do you get a lot of publicity? Any chances of picking up a sponsor? Is it an overall good competition to attend? Any other input/details for the good of persuading the team to attend?
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Last year all of the schools from counties where the schools were not in session had students at the Fair on and off throughout the week from the MD teams. This year it will be a little different since i know at least one of the counties is in school during the demo days. I also know some of Team 7's engineers are there in and out during the demo days since many work up the street from the fairgrounds.
Teams last year brought any number of people...but most brought the entire team. 500,000 people walked through the gates last year, Ch 11 (NBC) did a live broadcast of the event on one of their noon newscasts, and Ch 13 (CBS) did a story on Team 7. I assume that we will get some media coverage again this year. All of the local teams last year that had people in and out picked up sponsors. I don't know how that will work for your team since you are farther away, but you never know. We already have more teams than last year and I know 5 of the 16 won a regional event so it will be very competitive this year. We tend to be a little more laid back because this is for fun. You will definantly get a chance to meet a lot of teams that are not in your area since we mix the pits up and most likely will get a chance to take a crack at 7 again :) I think that answers all your questions Steve |
Thanks!
Thanks for all of the info. I know myself, along with the rest of our floor team would love to take 7 on again! We will be sure to put on an interesting match if we meet up again!:D
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It's official! Team 84 will be attending the MD State Fair. Would anyone else out there feel like sharing information with me about their teams that are planning on attending? It would be most useful from the teams that I haven't met up with yet. Thanks!
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Just as a bit of an inclusion of information, the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post also covered last years event. We will be in a better location this year so it should mean that there's even more traffic. Last year a good number of people were around watching at various times. I found it a fun event and I was refing. ;)
Matt |
Any suggestions on cheap places for accomidations for a small group of people? All other travel information will be appreciated! We are really using the $500 for travel, only travel, and only $500. We have no more money!!!
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Team 102
Team 102 is interested in attending the MD State Fair. Is there a list of teams that are already signed up? This sounds like a good competition.
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121, the beast from the northeast, is considering going. We still need to pay off our debt for florida. After winning 4 out of 6 comps this year, and seeding no lower than 4th, i think we have a great chance of seeding well.
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Teams Attending
Right Now we have 19 teams signed up:
7 53 84 116 225 272 291 306 339 341 398 422 652 686 768 836 888 927 928 We only have 5 more slots open. I will also check on the hotel stuff too. Steve |
Hey 102!
102 - I hope you guys take the state fair into consideration. You put on a good show, and I know that we would like a chance to battle it out with you again. There may even be the possibility of a tough 'bots alliance who put on a good show at MidAtlantics!:D
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QUESTION ABOUT SIGNING UP.
to reserve a spot for the competition, do we need to pay first. please answer soon, i would really like to know. thanks in advance.
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271 would also like to go.
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Open Spots
How many places are still available? We're still unsure about going, but we should know in a few days. I hope spots are still open, I'd really like to attend.
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Open Spots
How many places are still available? We're still unsure about going, but we should know in a few days. I hope spots are still open, I'd really like to attend.
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I'm sorry to say, but the fair is full.... the complete team list is below:
7 53 84 116 121 122 190 225 271 272 291 306 339 341 422 487 615 652 686 768 836 888 927 928 I look forward to seeing all these teams in a couple months! Steve |
Now that the list has been finalized - would anyone on here be willing to answer questions about their team before we go? Our team is only taking the drive team, so I must scout all of the teams myself!:( So, If anyone is willing to share info, let me know and I will post some questions on the forums. I will be more than willing to share about our team.
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sure! here's a pic of our 'bot (in a match, we're dumping balls into the goal). We have 4 wheel drive, we load up balls in the basket w/ human player (can pick from floor, but not too well), and grab 2 goals. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask!
Stephen |
Hey! Sorry it took me so long, but I finally got around to posting a pre-scouting form. If everyone who is going would be willing to reply to this, then all teams could access it at a later date. It won't take to much time, and if you don't want to do it, give me a contact of someone on your team, and I will get ahold of them. Also, if you know any contacts for teams that may not be on the forums, it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!:D
P.S. I will post the information that I asked you for about my team just below this post. Thanks again! Team Name ______________________ Team Number________ Are you a(n): ____ Advisor ____Engineer ____Student Drive System: ____2-wheel ____4-wheel ____other____________ Goal Controlling: ____1 goal ____2 goals ____3 goals ____none How? Ball Handling: How many? Fast, slow, or average? Mechanism/How? Go-Home Device: If yes, explain design: Strategy/Average Score: 2002 Accomplishments: |
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Team Name: Islanders
Team Number: 121 Are you a(n): ____ Advisor ____Engineer ___X_Student Drive System: ____2-wheel __X__4-wheel ____other____________ Goal Controlling: __X__1 goal ____2 goals ____3 goals ____none How? Grabber Ball Handling: How many? 20+ Fast, slow, or average? Fast Mechanism/How? Thresher Belt Go-Home Device: If yes, explain design: Maybe Strategy/Average Score: 2002 Accomplishments: *NYC Regional Chairmans Award *UTC Regional Winner *Arch. Division Finalist *Arch. # 1 seed *National Motorola Quality Award *Winning Alliance of Rally in the Valley *#1 seed Rally in the Valley *Winning Alliance Mayhem at the Merrymack *#1 seed Mayhem at the Merrmack *Victors of Battle Cry (Picked by 190) |
Does anyone happen to know if parking will be available for those participating in the competition. I see on the fair page, that they suggest using the light rail?
Also, I would greatly appreciate anyone else who would reply with information about their team. You can post it here, or reply directly to me if you'd like. Thank you! |
Parking and Stuff
Here is how parking works:
I believe Mike Wade will have a pass or 2 for each team to park on the fair gorunds close to the are we are setup. The best place to park if you do not have a parking pass is at the Park and Ride on the back side of the fair grounds (this is the light rail station, all you have to do is cross the tracks, there is an entrance right there). If you get there early enough in the morning (and we will be there early enough in the morning) parking is no problem, plus it is free! Note that you can only make right turns into and out of the fair grounds, so you may have to drive around the block to get where you want to go. Also while I'm thinking of it, there is a Home Depot and a Lowe's minutes from the fair grounds just about right next to each other, at least one radio shack and anything else we would ever need. And for the KK fanatics out there: There is a KK is across York Rd, easiest way to get there is from Timonium Rd (Exit 16 form I-83) make a left onto York Rd. and the KK is on your right. Steve |
There also happens to be a park and ride location directly next to the fair grounds (this is on the interstate side of the fair grounds). While the park and ride does fill up very quickly during fair days, we do tend to start very early so it isn't really filled up at that time. I parked there all three days last year.
Matt |
When are people bring their robots? I'm dropping off the Team 116 robot tomorrow (Wednesday).
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We are bringing ours on thursday.
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Just got back from taking the robot. We dropped it off yesterday (tueseday), and the only other robot there so far was 341. I already can't wait! :)
Stephen |
Team 190's robot is on it's way down today I believe.. along with 121's.
They were nice enough to take ours with them so both teams wouldn't have to make the trek to bring the robots down. Big thanks to them from 190.. they're a great team. |
I just got back from dropping off the Team 116 robot. There were about 7 robots there. They were building the playing field. I took a few pictures.
There is a live newscast this Friday from the robot area, at 4:30-5pm, on MD Public TV. If you're in the area, make sure you're there to show off your robot. |
another rules change
ok so most of you know you get 10 extra pounds to fool around with
also there is an extra little zone inside each goal zone now the top 8 cant choose the within the top 8. this is to avoid the familiar top seed and number 2,3, or 4 seed together. i think it works out pretty nicely just another way to balance out the game. |
one more
also the third alliance pick is chosen randomly from a hat.
On another note, my team hasn't done any of these off-season competitions before, so I am very excited about this. I even convinced my dad to drive me and my brother up a day before the team gets there so we can get extra driving time :) Can't wait to see ya'll there! Stephen |
Re: another rules change
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The last I heard about rule changes, there is a special bonus zone in zone 4 where each goal in that zone is worth 15 points as opposed to 10 elsewhere. I suppose I should know more about this as I'm supposed to modify the scoring software as well as ref the competition but for some reason I don't.
Also, listening to the radio on my way to work this morning, I heard an advertisment about the MD State Fair. When speaking of entertainment, they also talked about "NASA's high school FIRST Robotics Competition" which I thought was fairly cool. Even if it really wouldn't make sense to most people. Matt |
The extra 5 point zone will be a small rectangle within zones 2 and 4. It will only be large enough to fit 3 casters of the goal in, and Mike Wade said the drivers would really have to work to get the goal in, it won't be as easy as getting a goal in the 10 point goal zone.
Stephen |
Does anybody know if all 24 team are there now?
Does anybody have any pics of what it looks like? |
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I am not sure how long this link will be valid, but the Baltimore Sun has an article for the competition.
http://www.sunspot.net/news/educatio...al%2Dheadlines |
MD Fair
I was down yesterday with kids to practice. There were 2 other teams there at the time, Parkville (7), and some team in black shirts.
I didn't count, but there's definitely not 24 robots there yet. It is all under a big tent, but in late afternoon there was a pretty bad glare on the one side of the court. And at one point there were a bunch of random spectators throwing balls all over the place!!.....into goals & our robot basket while we were practicing!....pretty distracting / annoying....but I think if Mike was there at the time, he would have stopped it. Its about an hr drive for us....but we'll have a crew there to practice everyday 4ish - 6ish Mon - Fri. We need it ---- all but 5 kids graduated (including both drivers!) Good Luck all. Hope to meet some CD posters. Mrs T Bear Feat |
Just curious. I'll be there on Thursday to practice, and I was wondering how it is being run. Do you wait in line to take the field? Are there 4 bots at a time for 10 minutes? How many times are you allowed to practice?
Just wondering, all of our drivers are rookies (w/ driving, not new team members), including me, so we need that practice time! :) Stephen |
Yeah, just thought I would share that I received confirmation that our robot (Chuck N Moose) have arrived! Anyone have pics up yet to see what it looks like! Or you could share a pic of my 'bot on display! :) We will not be fortunate enough to have practice time. I will be in school, and arrive to be there Saturday morning to begin the long weekend. Hope to see some of you there.
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I temporarilly posted a photo from Wednesday here:
http://www.invisiblerobot.com/robotics/md-fair-temp/ Eventually, the photos will be in my team 116 photo album. There were 7 robots there Wednesday: 53, 116, 122, 306, 341, 400, and one that looked like a snowblower, but didn't have a number, only a NASA and an ERIEZ sticker. |
Hey everybody. Does anyone know how the MD fair is going ?
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Heidi and I took over 300 photos. Not all of them were of the robots though. We did photograph the animals, and the horseraces, and some of the rides and stuff. |
I've uploaded some pics already, I will take more tomorrow and upload them at some other time.
Now, sleep time. Wetzel ~~~~~~~~~~~~ /me is listening to E:\No Doubt\No Doubt - Don't Speak.mp3 |
who won?
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Team 121's team alliance won. Uhh...I forget who they had. I'm tired.
We came in 2nd (@#$!$@#$!$@#$!$@#$!$...another 2nd...)...we were captain of our alliance containing ...uhh...339 and 999? I think. I'm tired. Good job weedie :) (So what was this De told me about Dual on the Delaware?) |
Is there a web site with the standings and award winners from the MD State fair?
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Not that I know of...but I don't know of much. And I'm tired. I may find out tomorrow...not sure. I know some NASA guy was taking pictures that could be on the webpage. Not all too sure what will be included on that page or when it'll be up.
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The final standings for the top 8 were as follows: 121 84 7 190 122 225 306 398 For the first time as driver, the floor team had to fend for ourselves with choosing alliance partners. After going over endless scouting information, we finally ended our speaker phone conversation between the two driver rooms at almost 2 am. I think we chose wisely, and really tried to work with our 'picked from a hat' 3rd alliance partner. I want to thank 339 for their hard work. On behalf of myself and the rest of the floor team, I want to apologize to 190 for the breaking of your arm. I also want to thank evulish for being willing to fill the coaching position for us. In addition team 84 ended up with another two second places to add to our awards list. Putting us to somewhere around 5 or 6 second places now. Hmmm, who knows we still have time to win before we graduate evulish! |
So many seconds in FIRST. :) Is this our 5th, 6th, or 7th second this year?
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It was our 5th second in 2002, and 6th second in team history.
1999 National Runner-up 2002 MidAtlantic Finalists 2002 Newton Division #2 Seed 2002 PARC Finalists 2002 NASA/MD #2 Seed 2002 NASA/MD Reserve Grand Champion *don't forget MidAtlantic #1 Seed!!!! :) |
Hey 84-
No need for apology on our hook.. it's part of the game, and we're ready for that.. it's not the first (or last) time it's happened.. although we do wish there was a less destructive way for people to beat us :P But anyway- before we knew the standings (cause we had no clue where anyone was ranked) 84 was one of our top, prolly #1, choice for alliance partner.. Keep up the good work. |
colleen-
Your team has one NICE bot. I don't believe I had seen it before Maryland. I like your drivetrain. Chuck can push around most other bots out there but we couldn't even get you to move an inch. So I heard you upped your 450lb test cable to 900lb? (At least that's what our advisor said) And we lost our arm the next match anyways :P (121, our partner for that match, grabbed onto the goal and pulled us sideways, ripping of our arm) |
sorry about the goal grabber. We gotta stop doing that to teams. That has to be the 5th or 6th goal grabber we've broken off by accident this year. and colleen where was 121 on your list?
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No worries...we have many arms. :)
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121?? there's no WAY we could ever win a competition with those guys :P
121 would have been up there too, but we never doubted you'd be in the top 8... too bad we couldn't have picked from the top 8, maybe we could have won another one this summer.. alas, we knew we'd never have the chance to pair up in MD.... we'll see what this weekend brings... on the cable- we've been going back and forth between the lighter and heavier cable... we had the 450 strength all throughout VA, CA, and nationals.. and it only broke during the quarterfinals at Nats.. but then in the off season it started breaking quite a bit.. after losing it 3 times at Mayhem, we switched to thicker cable (plus, we had to borrow it from 61 for repairs and they only had thicker cable!) but, that gets messy real quick.. and that's been broken too.. we're starting to think there may be something out of kilter that's causing the cables to lose strength.. we'll see how it fairs in RiverRage on saturday... it's gonna be tough... but it's always filled with awesome bots.. should be fun... |
Does anyone know if NASA will have their photographer post pictures on the internet? He took many pictures, and it was really annoying, so I though it would be nice to see them.
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we have a mentor on our team that works for nasa that went around taking lots of pictures, but i have no idea if that's who you are talking about. they weren't official NASA pictures, but if you want to see them, I can ask him to post them. sorry the pictures annoyed you, but it's a good way to scout, and if i look at a picture then i'm much more likely to remember the robot than if i just look at "grabs 2 goals, has a tape-measurer extension, does not get balls."
i had a great time in maryland, hope everyone else did too! Stephen |
Playing Field / Control System at MD State Fair
For those of you who participated in this event:
What did you think of the playing field? I understand that it is comprised of panels with carpet that are pieced together. Also, any comments on the control system? I know it is not the same as the FIRST regional competitions. The NASA group has been working on this field for a long time and we are planning to use it for the DUEL ON THE DELAWARE event. I just want to get some feedback from teams that played on the field. Thanks! |
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Re: Playing Field / Control System at MD State Fair
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I have really no quarrels about the control system set-up. Obviously it was home made, but it worked just as good most of the times. One thing I would suggest is to have a step-by-step procedure to make your robot sync up, so there won’t be huge dealys trying to explain it to everybody. If you are planning to use this field in another competition than the biggest thing I would suggest is to buy some decent casters for the goals. And I would also try to find a way to get rid of the bolts on the inside playing field side. |
The field deffinately was not an official field, but a lot of hard work was put into it. Casters are a need for the goal, we are one of the toughest goal controlling robots, and I noticed difficulty when I was trying to hold onto them. In addition for changes to the goal, the bolts on it are not correct. Where the bars on the bottom are, in between each one are screws. The screws were not flat and caused problems for robots like us, because when you would grab onto the goal you had about an 1" 1/2 less area to shoot for. The screws need to be changed, or you need to warn teams of this. We ended up modifying our arms a bit, however, it was still difficult at times.
I was very surprised that the field stayed as dry as it did. BE VERY CLEAR ON WHAT YOU WILL DO. Do not call a match and then 30 minutes later have the judges decide to call it a different way, and do not have another match where you allow a different group of people to redo a match. Make sure you carefully measure out the placement of the tape on the fields. The distance between the goals should be at 32". The goals should also be set up with the flat side inward, not twisted. Make sure the goals are at the same depth too. Don't have one goal 2" farther away from the player station than the other goal. Overall it was very enjoyable. The changing of the binary is very simple, and would be faster if people would just follow the directions. |
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Matt |
The match that the judges changed was our 180 point match. They decided to only give us 90. I would rather not argue about this anymore but I am open for discussion on it.
Then there was another qualifying match (I think WPI was involved) where they re-did the match due to some technicality or something. If they did that, then they should of made it clear. They should of allowd us to re-run our match, when the opposing alliance did not show up. |
For our robot at least... the pieced together panels weren't all that great.. the carpet wasn't the same as at the real comps, and it didn't allow our anchors to attached to the ground well. Plus we took up a chuck of it with us at one point.
Also, the plywood driver stations seemed higher than the FIRST diamond plating, and our average height players couldn't even see the robot until it got into the second endzone when in normal competitions you could lean a bit and see it. With rookie drivers it made it hard, because they had that much less time to see they were heading a little crooked... The controls system seemed alright... as long as you remember to set you channel correctly. |
The high diamond-plate made me feel sorry for the middle school team :)
The channel switching thing was incredibly simple. Switch the channel then plug it in then turn the bot on. Easy as that. (Here I was told I needed to recall my binary knowledge...seeing as how there are only 10 types of people in this world: people who understand binary and those who don't *chuckle*) Anyways...the playing field was incredibly dry despite the mass amounts of rain. Our rule book took the brunt of the rain (probably soaking up most of the water in our pits) Nothing to do with the playing field...but unlike Maryland, the pit's should be arranged numerically. It was confusing. I walked around the whole pits trying to see the tiny numbers on the paper in the pits to find the team I was looking for was right next to us :D |
Talking about wierd thing with matches, one of ours was paused. A battery fell out with about 35 seconds to go(when I noticed it), Mike Wade told everyone to stop at about 25 seconds. They took the battery out and restarted the match at about 22 seconds. I was just like..what?
Looking for teams it was easier to look at the robots then the offical signage, prolly about 14 point font on a curled piece of paper. I'm surprised as well at how dry the carpet stayed, but I saw plywood under the carpet after a few matches where it was ripped up. They brought out the staple gun and stapled it back down. :D We had one match where we had no data/radio the entire time because Griffen forgot to reset the robot after changing the dipswiches. There was some other confusion around this, we had signal, but on the wrong channel. Swiched it when the guy told us to, and then didn't have signal on the correct channel. Way to go Griffen. The carpet was used at the Building Musem demo/thing at the end of the build period, and at Elenor Roosevelt in 2001 for their pre-ship testing day. It worked well, until put under heavy stress/high traction situations. My opinion, as a new driver/part of the flight crew, was that the field was just fine. Thats without comparing it to an 'offical' field/player station. I did feel a bit sorry for the middle school kids, especially the one who's chin was at the edge of the plexi. (I was short then too :() One other thing, another table in the pit would have been tremendously helpful. We ended up working on the bot with it on two chairs. Didn't help that we had standing water on Sunday, and the heat gun didn't do much when there was water comming in.:( Heat gun worked well on Monday, when it wasn't raining tho. :D I have a bunch more pics, if people wanna see them I will get unlazy and format them and upload them. Wetzel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /me is listening to E:\Snake River Conspiracy\Snake River Conspiracy - Somebody Hates You.mp3 |
There were a lot of neat things about the Maryland competition.
First of all, the carpet was glued down. I thought that was really nice - it provides a nice, even surface for you to drive around on and never bunches up. I think WPI didn't like it all that much, and I'm guessing because their brakes might not have worked as well or some such. The carpet at FIRST events was not glued to the floor (or stapled, for that matter) and so it could bunch up around brakes and provide additional strength. Also, the field was very well maintained - there were people out there working on it constantly after each match. I didn't think there were that many dips or raises on the field... I think the competition plugs in the control system could have been done better. FIRST released the pinouts and voltages to all of the competition port pins, so technically you could design a control system that was operated solely off the competition port (like FIRST). I think that would be a bit more effective than having to switch the channels yourself (although that wasn't too hard). One thing I really did not like was the continuation of the slack rules that plagued FIRST last year. Tethers were being deployed directly under goals, wrapping around robots, and everything, and nothing was being called. There were some great tethers out there - 888's Segway and 190's mouse come to mind - but others being deployed under robots and goals were aggravating. Also, one thing that really, really annoyed me at MD was that two of our batteries are now gone. We took our robot up there a week in advance, and took 4 batteries. When we got there, two were waiting in our pit. The coordinator said he had loaned one out, and the other one couldn't be found (because of the pits flooding one day and in the shuffle our battery was lost). The loaner was never recovered, and the one that was lost was never found. Also, our charger shorted out, probably due to the dampness, and took one of our batteries with it. We were left with one battery! 615 very graciously donated a battery to us, and 116 and 686 gave us loaners for matches and finals, so we survived, but still... those aren't exactly cheap batteries. The whole standing water thing in pit areas was definitely a turn-off. Having to roll our robot through puddles was not fun. My $.02 |
Yeah. The water wasn't cool. I was wearing Chucks the entire time. And who would have known that canvas shoes with huge holes in them weren't water-proof. I noticed a kid in the pits next to us was using a heat gun to dry their pits. That didn't work very well :P Maybe if it was about 30 times larger.
It seems like many teams misplaced their batteries. I remember being asked to check ours by a few teams. The only thing we misplaced was our robot cart :D (that was REEEAl hard to find...a big metal cart...oddly enough, there was another robot on it. *shrug*) |
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Matt |
Any word as to when NASA will actually post results/information/pictures on their site or even do a general update of the page?
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I just posted lots of new photos, including MD State fair photos. Click on my website link in my tagline, or the WWW button at the bottom of my posts.
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