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Unread 14-04-2002, 12:01
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dlavery dlavery is offline
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FRC #0116 (Epsilon Delta)
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Quote:
Originally posted by Joe Ross
Dave, your story doesn't match with the story that I was told. First of all, the scrimmage was in the summer of 2000 ;-) I know that much for sure, especially since Archer didn't have a robot in the summer of 1999, as their team started for the 2000 season.
You are correct - I was off by one summer (I was converting between English and Metric calendars, and got confused! ). There was a small scrimmage at JPL in the summer of 1999, but it was not the one that made everyone damp. As for problems at the 2000 scrimmage, there were some throughout the day but every one that we saw, and every one reported to us, was mechanical in nature or a control system problem caused by something other than the rain (i.e. software problems, disconnected PWM cables, etc.). Frankly, all of us were amazed that there were not massive electrical problems, given that the robots were put in an envionrmental condition for which they were never designed.

I remember standing under an umbrella with Dave Brown at the competition (it's ironic that the robots ran fine in the rain, but WE needed an umbrella...) and prognosticating about Dean and Woodie adding water hazards to future competitions after they saw how well the robots performed. There are lots of good reasons why this may end up to be a bad idea (DUH!) but it is still fun to think about. And who knows, maybe one of us will come up with a really creative, innovative way to add water hazards to the game that is also practical and easily implemented.

Maybe a kiddie pool in the middle of the play field as an obstacle? In the game, you can choose to ignore it and go around it. But if you make your robot water-tolerable and go through the pool, you get some major point advantage in the game.

All the Navy-sponsored teams would have a real advantage!

-dave

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