[Andy Baker]

OK, here is the scoop:

Mark Koors, TechnoKat - Delphi engineer, thought of the idea. We worked together in the fall to come up with a design for this. The team made a prototype during the late fall and had a rough proto working by the time of kickoff (it had bigger balls and only casters to keep it balanced).

Then, kickoff came and we had to decide what to build as a team: a strong track drive that can push really hard, or a quick and agile ball drive that had very limited pushing abilities.

We had a big disagreement. The team was split between the two drive bases, and we could not just pick one.

What we did decide was to make the track drive base our primary design that 95% of the team would focus on. The students and engineers worked together on the track drive base, making gearboxes, pulleys, spare parts, etc. At the same time, one engineer (Mark) worked on the ball drive base with some help from students and other engineers only if there was nothing to do on the track drive.

In the end, the ball drive robot was wired and programmed by the students, only after they got done with the track drive robot.

This was not easy to do... and we may not even get to use the ball drive robot. Unfortuneately (for many reasons) the two drive bases are not modular. Our original plan was to have a "control box" that could be switched between the two bases (similar to 190's control box in 2001). But, that did not work too well due to size, time, weight and money constraints.

So, we can switch between the two robots... but it would take alot of time. I am estimating about 2-4 hours of work to switch over the gearboxes (and re-allocate the CIM motor to another gearbox), move over the electronics (controller, fuse panels, RF transmitter, and victors), and the light. It could be done if we had to do it. Also... both robots come in at $3,473, including the polycarbonate arm on the Mighty Mouse.

So... if our Mighty Auk sucks so bad that it would not do well in the finals, we may offer our Mighty Mouse as a partner to a team who needs a highly-mobile, limboing stack wrecker.

We are not sure if this second robot was the right thing to do. We did not make a practice robot because of this 'bot... but I feel that the inspiration behind this robot is worth it. Time will tell.

Thanks goes out to all of the TechnoKats and a few others who knew about this design and kept quiet. Our management here at Delphi has recommended that we go ahead and file for a US patent on this design (which we did) so that our rights are protected.

This thing is a ball to drive. Please stop by our pit to check it out.

Andy B.