Minibot Competition at St. Louis

[DarrinMunter]

Thanks for everyone coming out to our pits and having their Mini-Bots timed.

Yes there was a problem with some of the bots - the magnets they had were strong enough to induce a voltage in the wire that were in the inside of the pole for the switch plate at the top. That voltage caused a false trip to the timer. After removing the wires from the inside of the pole, this problem went away The students were explained this and also learned a term called "active low" and why it's used. To bad I didn't remember this from my school days when I designed the timer.

The Mini-bots that were tripping the timer early (and causing the supper low times) were retested and had their times corrected. And as Luck would have it, it didn't change their standings.

Congratulations to FIRST Team 1986 Titanium Robotics with a time of 0.900 sec.
They won the award we made, and the can of SPAM that was donated as a prize as well.

The top 5 teams area as followed:
1986 Titanium Robotics 0.900
3098 The Captains 0.920
2984 The Vikings 0.922
1731 Fresta Valley Robotics 0.955
931 Perpetual Chaos Robotics 0.965

Thanks again for stopping by, and if you didn't get timed - maybe we'll meet up and do this again at IRI???
(I would still like to see one hit the top, fly off, and then deploy a parachute)