Quote:
Originally Posted by fox46
I think this new rule with respect to demonstrations violates FIRST's own "third party observer" rule. How would you explain it to your grandmother that you can't keep working on or testing the robot because it's beyond "stop build day" and in its bag...... Then you turn around and unbag it to drive it around. I miss the days when a FedEx truck would show up and take the robot away from you. Much less chance for teams to pull post-stop-build-day shenanigans.
|
This rule is really fortuitously timed for 4901. Our flagship sponsor (the University of South Carolina College of Engineering and Computing) has their National Engineering Week open house the Saturday after ship day. As rookies, we have no spare robot. In past years with another team that built there, we had no
working robot since we had to yank the cRIO for the robot that's in the bag.
As for the "not practice" rule, we (I) plan to document the heck out of it. Robot as it left the bag, robot as it entered the bag, the space where we ran it (which seeing the map of that open house won't resemble the field at all), who ran it (there's a bounty for a picture of
Cocky running it), and have that all with us. Anyone who wants to say something can say something.
(Caution: Off-Topic Discusion Follows)
Quote:
Seems like FIRST is getting easier and easier every year. All you really need to do this year is pick-up and throw a ball- half of the robot pictures I've seen on CD here look identical. The only real part of the robot being built anymore is the frame which holds all the COTS items together and even those can be purchased "off the shelf". (Veterans- remember trying to mount drill motors? Or having a 20000RPM motor with no clue how to use it?) Between the number of COTS items available from awesome vendors like AM and VEX, three different groups posting videos and instructions within the 1st week on "how to build your aerial ascent robot", the ever-increasing withholding allowances, being allowed to unbag in order to drive your machine around... Yes it is his 10th demonstration this week but no no grandma- I assure you our driver isn't getting any experience. Anyone know where to get more lockup tags? 
|
This is my eleventh time at the rodeo, 13th robot. The first one didn't even move until Week 6, when we plunked in two window motors out of sheer desperation. The second one, we struggled with the old AM Trick Wheels (remember those?) not spinning freely until we had to stick a nigh-uncontrollable caster on the back of the robot. The third one we took a portaband to on Saturday of Palmetto for better defense because we couldn't shake our sticking-ball demons. The fourth one straight clocked me in the jaw with a window motor at high speed.
I say all this to frame my next statement: This is the hardest season I've been a part of, bar none. We watched the Robot In 3 Days and Build Blitz videos, and yes, you'll see we cribbed off more than one machine when we take the covers off Sandstorm I. But the process of starting a team from bare walls with no school backing us up, the process of getting the kids and mentors all on the same page, getting the parts at all, integrating those parts, balancing "We can do that here in our space" against "We
should send that part out for cuts", battling three or four days lost to winter weather (Will we have shirts for the FLL state championship Saturday? Will we
have an FLL state championship Saturday?), and generally trying to make the most out of the 15-20 hours a week in the shop?
That's still hard. And I wouldn't change a thing.