Will this year's game be a war of attrition?

[MrForbes]

If you can get an alliance partner to haul tubes over to your scoring, floor picking up robot, then you might be able to avoid the manipulator collision damage problem somewhat.

We had a long arm on our 2007 robot and only suffered significant damage to the manipulator once, and that was to our admittedly weak wrist hinge.

[gren737]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

Yea.... When Robots were Robots. Metal against Metal. Puts a big smile on my face also

count me in this camp!!

Part of the process is designing a robust robot...always has been. First seemed to work quite successfully without bumpers for many years...I would personally love to see it go back (or at least give teams the option of with or without)

[sdcantrell56]

The ideas in this thread are the exact ideas that lead us to build a trooper that will only be extended out for the 1 second or so that were actually acquiring a tube. After that its well inside the frame perimeter as is the tube. Should be fun seeing who built anticipating the large impacts.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

Should be fun seeing who built anticipating the large impacts.

This used to be such a HUGE part of FIRST back before bumpers. It's been discussed a hundred times already, but the "robustness" category has slipped further and further down the priority list for many teams because of the addition of bumpers.

Obviously this isn't a terrible thing, its just funny how we're sitting here discussing today how ground loading isn't smart because your appendage might get hit (most likely by a bumper). Back in the day, you kinda had to assume everything you built would be whacked, hooked, grabbed or whatever else it may be!

-Brando

[Koko Ed]

2008 was a war of attrition for both the robots and the field.
By the end of the off seasons the field was barely able to hold together after so many competitions with robots slamming full speed into the sides so hard.

[Tom Line]

I suspect that BB (before bumpers) taught people basic robustness practices much more quickly than our somewhat toned-down game we have now.

Every year I see dozens of robots that make me shake my head. No strain relief on the wires (and there should be strain relief of some sort on EVERY wire). Sensors and other fragile components out where they can be easily ripped off or destroyed. Uncovered motor tabs on FP's.

For instance, this year, you already know you're going to see dozens of banebots motors on the arms with their motor tabs exposed for all the word to bash at (and short out). Likewise with the multitude of forklift style bots, you're going to see a ton of loose wire flying about just asking to get yanked.

That still doesn't make me want to return to the no-bumper bots of yesteryear though.

[ChrisH]

I belive the addition of bumpers has nothing to do with protecting robots. It has more to do with protecting the field from the robots. Certain areas of every field take a lot of damage from robots. In 2008 there were some field parts that had to be re-welded repeatedly.

Not that I personally would mind going back to metal on metal

ChrisH

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

For instance, this year, you already know you're going to see dozens of banebots motors on the arms with their motor tabs exposed for all the word to bash at (and short out).

That's what pipe benders are for

[pfreivald]

Spare parts are your friend -- but so is a robot designed to tuck in unless it doesn't have to!

[Nick Bouressa]

I'm scared now!

Last week we mounted our forklift style lifter and arm to our chassis to test stability. But mech team was still around the robot discussing were to put the winch for our lifter(when we "installed" it, it could not move up or down) when all of a sudden the robot started to spin around very quickly! And the fully extended fiberglass arm acted like a giant lever against my dads leg. Which put alot of torquing force on our lift (made of 80-20) after the robot was disabled we found that our 1/8 aluminum plated holding the arm to the lift bend like a paper clip, and the standard 80-20 braces holding the two sides of the elevator sheared in half! So we had to fabricate new bearing plates out of lexan (our theory is aluminum and lexan both bend but lexan bends back) and super strong new cross braces on our lift.

Honestly I'm glad this happened when it did as oppose to at GSR because we would not have been able to fix it! I am also concerned about the stability of our chassis because it is made of the same material as our lift was when it broke.


*No one was hurt*
*And yes, we learned to stay away from the robot when its live*