Iterative Design Wins Championships - Beatty 2002

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by George1902

Let's not discount the role 173 and 66 played on that championship alliance. The BEAST was certainly a formidable opponent, and we all can learn a lot from the process they used to create such a dominant machine. But the way I remember it, it was RAGE and the Penguins who brought home the gold.

http://www.theredalliance.com/2002_championship

Beatty's BEAST was it's usual self in the first match of finals, locking down the goals and turning the match into an easy victory. But the second match was a different story...

The BEAST didn't even make it onto the field for the third match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk4D0...layer_embedded

RAGE scored plenty of balls as usual and the Penguins' drivers made some excellent moves with the goal in tow to keep SPAM's gripper from getting a good hold on the goal.

Those final matches still haunt me. While there's no doubt 173/71/66 deserved to win, I felt that we had a real chance (we being 311/308/180, that is).

Our robot (back then I was drive coach on 308) never showed our full had that year because up until that match, we didn't need to. Our secret weapon was that we could lift the goals about 10 inches off the ground if we really needed to (usually we only lifted them 2-3 inches). By lifting the goals that high, we thought that we might be able to lift the BEAST's front end off the ground, rendering their file cards useless.

Unfortunately for us, as we raced toward the center of the field in that first match of the finals, one of the gears on one side of our drive system shifted to the side leaving only about half of the face-width engaged. When we collided with the BEAST at midfield, the gear shredded leaving us only able to power one of our tank treads. The attached pictures show the devastation.

180 and 311 did a fantastic job in the 2nd match, tying the series at one each. While that match was going on, we pounded the shredded gear back in place so the remaining half of the gearset that wasn't shredded created a gear-mesh. We tested it on the cart and it worked. We had to decide if we wanted to gamble on it holding up for one match, or let 180/311 try again.

I knew that if the BEAST was in there, that gear would have shredded again. It was a tough decision, but when 311 asked if we could go, we said it would be better if we sat out. Unfortunately for us, our alliance was locked in as I saw 66 and 173 going out on the field. Had I known the BEAST wasn't going to play, we would've told 311 that we could go (albeit we would've been nervously crossing our fingers at the start of the match).

The killer came a week later when our robot showed up back home. We unpacked it and set it on the floor. We wanted to give it a go to see if we could've raced to the goals and grabbed them without the damaged gears shredding. We just had to know what would have happened in that final match for all the marbles.

We counted down... 3... 2... 1... go! The robot raced toward the goals at blazing speed, grabbed the goals, lifted them, and hunkered down. Oh, the agony. You could look around and see the sadness on everyone's face: we knew that it all could've all been different. It STILL kills me.

All of that is not to take anything away from 173/71/66. Those guys really were the perfect alliance to win the game that year. What a crazy finish it was.