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There were a lot of neat things about the Maryland competition.
First of all, the carpet was glued down. I thought that was really nice - it provides a nice, even surface for you to drive around on and never bunches up. I think WPI didn't like it all that much, and I'm guessing because their brakes might not have worked as well or some such. The carpet at FIRST events was not glued to the floor (or stapled, for that matter) and so it could bunch up around brakes and provide additional strength. Also, the field was very well maintained - there were people out there working on it constantly after each match. I didn't think there were that many dips or raises on the field...
I think the competition plugs in the control system could have been done better. FIRST released the pinouts and voltages to all of the competition port pins, so technically you could design a control system that was operated solely off the competition port (like FIRST). I think that would be a bit more effective than having to switch the channels yourself (although that wasn't too hard).
One thing I really did not like was the continuation of the slack rules that plagued FIRST last year. Tethers were being deployed directly under goals, wrapping around robots, and everything, and nothing was being called. There were some great tethers out there - 888's Segway and 190's mouse come to mind - but others being deployed under robots and goals were aggravating.
Also, one thing that really, really annoyed me at MD was that two of our batteries are now gone. We took our robot up there a week in advance, and took 4 batteries. When we got there, two were waiting in our pit. The coordinator said he had loaned one out, and the other one couldn't be found (because of the pits flooding one day and in the shuffle our battery was lost). The loaner was never recovered, and the one that was lost was never found. Also, our charger shorted out, probably due to the dampness, and took one of our batteries with it. We were left with one battery! 615 very graciously donated a battery to us, and 116 and 686 gave us loaners for matches and finals, so we survived, but still... those aren't exactly cheap batteries.
The whole standing water thing in pit areas was definitely a turn-off. Having to roll our robot through puddles was not fun.
My $.02
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Gui Cavalcanti
All-Purpose College Mentor with a Mechanical Specialty
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Class of 2008
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