[kaliken]

One of my favorites is a combination of programming and just plain old stupidity. And this one you can blame on the mentors!!!

In 2006 Aim High 294 was at the LA regional. We had programmed a second version of our autonomous to drive out make a turn aim and fire the balls into the goal. This was different than the one we did in AZ where we just angled it to the goal and fired.

We tuned it up to be working great on the practice field. We were nailing 5 out of 6 and we were ready to go...

We get onto the field and the students realize that the practice field was set up as a mirror image of the real field!!! unable to turn off the selected auto mode(switch wasn't ready) they angled the robot away in a funny angle so we wouldn't hit our teammates. What resulted was us firing 6 balls in rapid succession into the judges laps(err.. faces) who were oh so kindly sitting next to the field!!! Needless to say it took them by surprise but we ended up winning an innovation in controls award there! (not for the autonomous but for our HUD)