1)Team Name: Killer Bees
2)Team Number: 33
3)How many people on the team? 30
4)How many guys? 25
5)How Many girls? 5
6)What does everyone do? There are 3 groups, CAD, PR, and Build
Design Questions
1) How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) We design it all throughout the build period, but the preliminary design work takes about a week.
2) Do you prototype first? Yes
3) How many people design things? There are 3 goups, each with an adult mentor that "guides" the students, but everyone has a say. This year the groups were chassis, Ball-O-Fier, and hanging arm (which never went on). Last year they were Chassis, Box Manipulator Claw, and Arm.
4) How many people build things? Every student on the build team, which is about 20. Our robot is pretty much entirely student built.
5) How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? Every team member is required to be at all meetings, which is about 16 hours per week. Some people like myself go more during crunch time.
6) Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students? Engineers
Strategy Questions
1) How much experience do your drivers have? (years) This year and all of the offseason events last year
2) How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? 3 weeks for the chassis, a few days with most of the robot, no time with the actual competition configuration. Thereforem the driver had a lot of practice, the operator (me) had to figure it all out at the competition.
3) Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?
Last year we tried to do everything well and we weren't so great, so this year we focused on ball handling and hanging. We were awesome at both, but we had to sacrafice the good hanging arm for something that was so-so. The other year we were REALLY good, 2001, we did one thing well, which was handling goals. Although we did everything in 2002 and won a regional. I guess it all depends on the game. I'll stop, I'm rambling.
4) Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.
4 speed automatic transmission that weighs about 2 pounds, pop down casters converting it to 2wd for turning on a dime, Stepping Chassis, Pop out ball ingestion system, it's all special!
5) How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? We measured the wheel counts during build season and that's it. All of the autonomous coding was done after shipping, and it all works. That's all Jim (DaimlerChrysler programmer/engineer) and Kevin (prodigy) right there, they're awesome
6) What does your autonomous do? Knock down the first, second, or both balls then reverse or drive under the ball dump
Other information
Speed (fps) 12 in high, about 6 in low
Robustness (1-10) 9.5
Agility (1-10) 10 due to the pop down castors in the back making it 2wd.
During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? Which competition?
Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? At nationals I feel we did a bit, and at Detroit we definately did by having our drive fail.
Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)
VCU: 4th
Detroit: 3rd
Canada: 17th?
Archimedes: 5th
Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)
NASA/VCU Regional:
-Champions
-Xerox Creativity award
Detroit Regional:
-Leadership in Controls award
Canada Regional:
-Champions
-Driving tomorrow's technology award
-Industrial Design award
National Championship:
-Driving tomorrow's technology award
Personal Info
What is your name? Paul Huston
Age? 18
How long have you been on the team? this was my second year
What was your role on the team? Build: Ball-O-Fier team, pneumatics guy, and operator
That was fun!