Some of this will be nightmare repairs, and some will be just nightmare problems. As a caution, this might be kind of long.
2009 - Troy District:
- Get hit by a robot at some point, breaks ball collection, add protective metal bar in front of replacement (nightmare is that it was held with zipties), zipties slip in quarterfinals, sole reason we don't advance to semis
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2011 - West Michigan District?:
- Try hanging a tube, I think in autonomous, and we managed to get our robot's lift jammed to the hooks. That was interesting to remove from the field, especially as I think the window motor thermal lock probably tripped.
2012 - Traverse City District:
- Robot falls over from bridge, bends lots of things, but we weren't using them, so they just get taken off.
2013 - Traverse City District:
- It is the semifinals, and if I recall correctly, we were unable to shoot discs our first match. After metaphorically banging my head against the wall for a few moments, I realize that its victor isn't powered and the WAGO connection has come out. We take a time out and set to putting it back in (even though we got it done in enough time [read: almost to the second] that we didn't really need it, but a time out once called isn't easily rescinded). Able to shoot that second match, but our competition beats us and goes on to win the whole thing.
2013 - St. Joseph District:
- It is Thursday, and we wonder why the shooter isn't working, after having little mechanical difficulty with the shooter at TC. We determine that the gearbox (bought this year!) is slipping under load when trying to shoot, meaning the arm cannot move. We finally determine that a gearmotor from spare parts will work, and get it put on for Friday.
- It is Friday, so many things go wrong all day, but no nightmare repairs (mostly small, annoying ones). The worst was why we were having serious communication issues. I was told it was the cRIO rebooting (and so tried a bunch of fixes to secure its power, which kept coming loose). Prior to one qualification match I found that the positive line to the cRIO has come out, and as we didn't have a small-enough screwdriver with us, someone had to run and get one. This time, we got it done in time for the match. On the practice field at the end of the day, we find that the main comms issue (or possibly another) is that the dLink is rebooting, and that issue was fixed with a single ziptie
) - Saturday went really well, aside from heavy defense...
PS Why does this year seem to have more nightmares, even though we did better? It also seems to have more repairs than outright removals
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