[fast frank]

our 2 robots from this year are all student built. (we built a fully functional, full scale duplicate to practice with/against) we had someone do the welding because no student knew how to weld properly, but i'm taking welding classes this summer, so i'll do that next year. our robot was design completely by the students too. i personally designed the drive system, but our parent/sponsor/mentor/(what ever you want to call him) helped us get the 4 motors geared to the same speeds. an engineer was convinced that my design would not work, but all of the students liked it so we built it anyway. and out of the 4 regionals that we attended (2 just to scout other teams) and nationals, i did not see any other robot able to spin 2 goals like we can. we remade our 3-piece telescoping arm from last year. our grabbers are also student designed and made.

i've heard that some teams had their robots completely made by an outside company and that they didn't see it untill the competition. this makes me mad. our team for 6 weeks spent hundreds of hours working. 2-10 weekdays and 10-10 weekends, with a couple of all nighters. we have a pretty small team, maybe 20 students, but we are all fully devoted. we were working all day today fixing and modifying the robot for some post season competions. we made new wheels that should get a lot more traction. i think that every robot should be built by the students, i know i've learned a lot form it.