Floor Damage?

[BHS Bucs]

Okay, this might be totally ridiculous to ask... But where do folks drive when they are practicing? We're a Rookie team and we've built in one of our large classrooms at our high school. No issues there - we had access to the if needed, but did the building in the room.

However, now we've started to drive. And the tile floors are getting pretty marked up - needless to say, our custodial staff is NOT pleased with us (especially since we're in the new wing of the building that opened this fall - oops.). I feel bad because I certainly understand their concern, but at the same time, with most of the halls off limits, the gym in constant use (and never mind the marking up we'd cause on the floor there!), and the multi-purpose room (where we ideally like to drive) used by the cheerleaders half the afternoons, we're limited.

We no longer allow the students to drive in the halls (something was only said to me two days ago), but today there was a very concerned e-mail about the damage the "robot" was doing in both the hall and the classroom. We've got a week to practice - and I don't know what to suggest! Thoughts?

(We are using two of the kit wheels and two casters...)

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Sarah,
In spite of everything else, you should try driving on carpet somewhere. That is what you will be driving on at events and it will be different. I team I visited yesterday, practices in their cafeteria with all the tables folded up and out of the way.

[richwong]

I, too, highly recommend driving on carpet similar to what will be at competition. You will find that your robot will behave very differently on carpet vs. tile. You can usually purchase remnants from a local carpet store for a reasonable price. You can save it and reuse it each year.

[ALIBI]

Any chance of getting a carpet remnant and putting it down in your classroom while you practice? Are there any other teams in your area that have a field set up? Our shop has carpet and the entire room is the same width as the track and about 30 feet +/- longer. Thanks to several years of stuff/robots it gets difficult to have enough clear space. When we are ready, another local team will allow us to use there full size practice field. I would check with other teams and ask if you can practice on their field.

[Molten]

Quick story to show the importance of carpet as stated above me: Last year our robot drove great on tile, but when we went to drive on carpet we couldn't turn. I guess we had too much traction.

Also, try anywhere. It really doesn't have to be ideal conditions, you might have to take it somewhere specificly to drive for an hour. Hope this all works out for you. Just remember, if it turns out that you don't have anywhere to drive it, that isn't the end of the world because you still have the day for practice matches.

[Justin Montois]

Maybe you could schedual a drivers practice meeting at night so you have the multi-purpose room to yourself. Our team meets 6-9 MTh and we pretty much have run of the school.

[BHS Bucs]

Thanks for all the ideas! We've had it up in the multi-purpose room a few times during testing so the students could feel the difference - the irony is that the practice on the tile they've been doing has basically been to make sure that their programming is working correctly - back and forth, up and down the hallway.

We love the idea of carpet remenents - we hadn't considered that! Brilliant. We'll definitely look into that. And I like the idea of getting a night next week or so where we can come in after everyone is gone. Thanks, everyone!

[Jon Stratis]

For testing if the code is working, some of that does need to be done driving around, but we've found that a surprising amount of testing can occur with the robot up on blocks and the wheels not actually touching the ground. For initial testing, for example, you can see what direction the wheels are spinning, and approximately how fast, so you don't need to actually have it on the ground.

An additional benefit to putting it up on blocks is the "run-away robot" situation - if you're first testing code with it on the ground, there's a decent tendency for something to go awry, and the robot to start driving into chairs, tables, walls, or even students. Up on blocks, you can at least ensure that you can stop just fine!

[Roger]

Programing up on blocks is good for a start, but sometimes you need some good ol' floor to see if the robot does it the right way. And carpet is better than tile. Our robot is fast as it is on carpet; on tile it would slip all over the place.

I hope the custodians aren't asking you to put tennis balls on your robot (like they do here with the chairs).

(PS - I sent you a PM.) Roger.