I will try to add some clarification to what happened to our bot during finals at Peachtree. Sorry for the late reply; I took Sunday off
In the finals 2nd round we suffered a fairly catastrophic structural failure. the bottom plate that held the battery and C-Rio fell out of the bottom of the robot because the support brackets failed on one side (they were made out of plastic from a 3D printer...won't do that again). Given 20-30 minutes and the resources of the pit we could have fixed it, but with just a few minutes between matches the best we could do was to install some bolts to support the plate without really attaching to it. It only had to last 1 match; it didn't. We didn't do any post mortem to determine the cause of the robot dying before it was wrapped, however, I suspect an electrical fault.
We neglected to charge the pneumatic system, and has been stated previously this caused the shooter to be in the lowered position, and out of compliance with the starting configuration. Duct tape was used in an attempt to keep the shooter locked up high, but in waiting for the match to start it must have slowly given way.
Then there was the last minute addition of a Frisbee deflector. Our weight was 91 pounds and I believe the defector was less that 60" high. But it was not done though the proper procedure with robot inspections and that is not right. We would have been better served to get the pneumatics charged.
We are very grateful for the alliance selection pick by our partners 1683 Techno Titans and 4509 Mechanical Bulls. We did our best to perform our defensive role within the alliance and literally "left it on the field." We had a wonderful competition, learned many things, and made some new friends. See you guys in South Florida
