What every mentor is thinking right now is...

[lovelj]

Two mentors from 3824 tonight after running brutal cycles all day:

Craig: "Boy, I hope our bot stays together"
Lonnie: "I think there are about 8,000 mentors thinking the same thing tonight."

[Bochek]

First comment from one of our mentors was "well I better go start packing the toolbox"

[Dan Petrovic]

We had to replace a length of chain after every match during Week Zero this weekend.

We're planning on making the switch to #35 chain before our competitions.

[Boltman]

A collective "We underestimated how strong to make the bot for Stronghold, wear and tear is ridiculous"

Five separate systems broke on first practice day...without defense being played

Followed by "We made a Jack of all trades again, we did not follow own lesson last year not to do it all just do one thing the best"

We can do it all hopefully...see if that works this year.

I'll add "Need more practice , less engineering"

We might be doing back to back week 1 for sure and likely week 2...not sure if the bot will survive

[Jon Stratis]

Every step of the way this year I was thinking "we're over-building this thing". Now I'm thinking "We might just survive..."

[Mechvet]

Aside from our shooter forcing itself free of some shaft collars, we didn't have any mechanical issues from a week 0 practice event.

I think the reliance on half inch hex shafts and bulky bearing supports might have been our saving factor. We haven't snapped chain, nor have we bent any of our drive components. We're also slamming over all the defenses at ~11fps.

I'm concerned about longevity of the smaller bits after six or seven matches. Retaining clips, E clips, and other small consumables tend to wear down, and the spring steel they're made of just isn't made for these types of force.

[IronicDeadBird]

I can't believe I let build season distract me from the fact that iHop had unlimited pancakes for a few weeks.

[MrForbes]

I'm glad I'm getting a cold today, instead of last week.

[Kevin Ray]

At the end of the first full day hard practice, we had 15 nuts and screws on the carpet...Now to find where they came from... We might just dip the entire bot in a Locktite bath before bagging.

[lovelj]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

At the end of the first full day hard practice, we had 15 nuts and screws on the carpet...Now to find where they came from... We might just dip the entire bot in a Locktite bath before bagging.

LOL!! I've got a buddy mentoring a team with an 80/20 frame. I'll pass on that advice. We thought of wrapping our robot in those big summo balloons and just bounce our way thru a competition.

[Richard Wallace]

What component will we break next?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ray

At the end of the first full day hard practice, we had 15 nuts and screws on the carpet...Now to find where they came from... We might just dip the entire bot in a Locktite bath before bagging.

I told my students that we should buy a case of blue threadlocker and sell it at the competition as a fundraiser. After reminding them to go over everything and threadlock it.

[s_forbes]

I can't wait to see the destruction. This year is gonna be fun on a bun!

[Oblarg]

...and people thought Aerial Assist was rough on robots.

It's one thing to make a robot robust to moderate impacts in the bumper zone. This is easily manageable with a bit of planning, and can be hotfixed if you didn't plan for it without too much trouble.

It is another entirely to design a drive train that can slam into large obstacles at high speeds and not get torn to shreds. A lot of the standard drive best practices just weren't designed for these constraints, which I think a lot of us (myself included) are going to learn the hard way. This is my ninth year of FRC, and I can't remember anything even close to this rough. It's going to be absolute mayhem.

On the one hand, I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity for gracious professionalism and coopertition to shine at events as many of the robots break down and teams help each other with the fixes.

On the other, I think it might make for a lot of frustration and disappointment.

We'll see.

[PayneTrain]

What's next?

Just kidding, I already know what's next and it definitely isn't sleep.