Quote:
Originally Posted by Billfred
Durability. It's different this year from years past; if you undertook basic design wisdom, your robot is probably safe from most aggression from other robots. This is no guarantee that you're safe from the field.
It took most of the Bayou regional for our two teams to find all the little things that fall apart when you go banzai over these bumps. If you've got a practice robot or used the withholding allowance to keep your drivetrain and you haven't built a bump, follow these steps:
Step 1: Build a bump. Go ahead, throw the carpet on it; reasonably close rugs can be had for $20 at Walmart.
Step 2: Run your robot over the bumps three ways:
This will shake out something that you didn't have to strap down quite as tight in years past. Fix it now rather than later. |
Third! A photographer on team 134 captured some amazing shots in the final matches. In one, our robot is on its side while they are touching the entire underside of our robot. In another (and several other times in the finals) our two robots went head to head resulting in both robots going airborne in a V formation. Thankfully no serious damage was done to either robots except for a sensor coming out.
Also, ensure all major connections are in before matches. Our team lost power to the radio in a qualification match and team 1058 also lost cable connection in qual. matches due to a bumpy ride. Solution: zipties. Our team took 3 zipties (one small around the power connector and 2 large to stretch around the radio) to keep the power cable in place. Will not come out without a pair of angle cutters!
Good luck teams!