Minibot Competition at St. Louis

[CassCity2081]

Team 2081, Icarus, has modified our minibot pole a little bit to include a sensor for when the minibot crosses the deployment line and put switches at the top. Both of these are hooked up to a timer. When the minibot crosses the sensor the timer starts and when it hits the top the timer stops.

The real point of this post is I'm wondering if teams at Nationals would be interested in turning this into a fun competition at our pits. We thought last night of bringing the pole to Nationals and also bringing along a whiteboard to keep track of the top three fastest minibots and they would get prizes at the of Nationals. To keep our pits clear this would only be the minibot and not the deployment.

All I am wondering is if teams would be interested and if they had any ideas for prizes we could give out.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

This actually sounds kind of cool! For later in the weekend of course. Don't want to give away too many secrets.

[Chris Hibner]

Sounds like fun. I'll try and convince our minibot team to give it a try.

[tyronott]

What kind of prizes are we talking

[CassCity2081]

Originally Posted by tyronott

What kind of prizes are we talking

We are open for suggestions!

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by tyronott

What kind of prizes are we talking

Just knowing that you the fastest minibot should be all the prize that you need.

Al, I think you just scared the other 348 teams registered for the championship (if not, they should be).

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by CassCity2081

Team 2081, Icarus, has modified our minibot pole a little bit to include a sensor for when the minibot crosses the deployment line and put switches at the top. Both of these are hooked up to a timer. When the minibot crosses the sensor the timer starts and when it hits the top the timer stops.

The real point of this post is I'm wondering if teams at Nationals would be interested in turning this into a fun competition at our pits. We thought last night of bringing the pole to Nationals and also bringing along a whiteboard to keep track of the top three fastest minibots and they would get prizes at the of Nationals. To keep our pits clear this would only be the minibot and not the deployment.

All I am wondering is if teams would be interested and if they had any ideas for prizes we could give out.

How easy is this to implement for off-season competitions?

[Jared Russell]

We were thinking about doing something similar in our Hall of Fame booth, but got sidetracked by too many other projects to follow through. Good on you guys for following through!

One thing that we were thinking about doing was giving out "official looking" stickers that teams could put on their bot or in their pit...they should say something like "Team 2081-Certified 1.25 Second Minibot". We'd definitely slap one on the old bot

If you need any help, let me know via PM and I'm sure our media folks will be able to help you out! (We regularly bring color printers to events)

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

Al, I think you just scared the other 348 teams registered for the championship (if not, they should be).

Wana be scared? They were fast at Wisconsin, they were faster at Midwest, and they have had all this time to get faster!

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by tyronott

What kind of prizes are we talking

I'll put up a can of SPAM for the winner.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Jared341

One thing that we were thinking about doing was giving out "official looking" stickers that teams could put on their bot or in their pit...they should say something like "Team 2081-Certified 1.25 Second Minibot". We'd definitely slap one on the old bot

Stickers add too much weight....

[NOV8R]

We thought about doing the same thing for an off season event here in the Denver area. We are thinking of having two poles in a drag race format complete with lights. We'll be in St Louis so count us in.

[CassCity2081]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

How easy is this to implement for off-season competitions?

The way we did it would be very difficult if not impossible. We have two arms coming off the base with one arm having a photo sensor and reflective paper on the other arm. It works well for just eliminating human error in timing but it takes away half of the deployment area.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Richard

I'll put up a can of SPAM for the winner.

I'll put up a couple of TETRIX motors. Of course they're not SPAM, but they smell like it.

[Joe Ross]

It sounds like 1279 did something similar at the Washington DC regional.