Posted by EddieMcD at 2/19/2001 11:05 AM EST
Student on team #121, Islanders, from Middletown High School and NUWC.
In Reply to: Question for members of all teams
Posted by Karl on 2/19/2001 9:18 AM EST:
It's extremely common.
Back in 98, we had a problem with our manipulator. It had something to do with at standard height it was half the harmonics of the frequency. At full height with the manipulator, we created a dead-zone in the middle of our robot. And the antenna was there, so we stopped. We only found this out after the first day of competition. And, well, we "inhaled audibly". Then came the nationals. We tweaked a bit here and there. Then, we got into the finals. And of course, all our destruction the previous year with Auqatread (veteran teams will remember this) came back to haunt us. The steel bar that held the chain together somehow snapped and our manipulator arm was lifeless. We took second.
The moral is: if your robot doesn't work too well in the regionals, don't worry. Just hope a steel rod doesn't snap for no apparent reason.
