[Gui Cavalcanti]

IT has a really weird way of aging. Everything works perfectly, without degrading, but then something suddenly goes wrong without warning. There isn't much we can do to our robot for preventitive maintenance for this kind of thing...

For instance, at a Science Museum demo we went to, one of the keys popped out of the keyway between our drive sprocket and the cut shaft. We need to fix that but haven't gotten around to it.

Overall I think IT's gotten a bit slower and weaker, but I'm not sure. The body panels look like they've been through a sandblaster because they end up on the floor every single match, and many people (including us) tend to drive over them. Our wheels are holding up fairly well (especially the aluminum ones, lol). The back, screw-studded wheels should probably die at Maryland, but we have replacement assemblies so it's all good.

We look forward to the Maryland State Fair and the DuPont/MOE/Lunatecs event in October.

Amazingly enough, Peacemaker from 2001 is doing well. We didn't think this would be the case, because he used to have incredible tread problems (slipped off every 5 minutes after nationals), but he's better and hasn't slipped off since we added a tightener. We retrofitted a compressor to him, so now his claws can open and close with impunity.

We plan on using IT as a demo to next year's students - "DONT BUILD THIS KIND OF ROBOT!"