Wildstang 2012: After The Game

[SteveGarward]

Wildstang gets a lot of visitors in the pits at competitions, looking at our robot, seeing what we did, asking how we did things. This is great, but only for those at the same competitions!

This year, instead of trying to put some information down in words and pictures, I wanted to try something different and put together a series of videos detailing the design of different parts of the robot. So we gladly introduce our design videos: After The Game.

I managed to grab a couple of juniors and seniors who were heavily involved in the robot design and build (and who hadn't run away on summer vacation or off to college!), and talked through our robot design - what we did, how we did it, and what changed over the course of the season. But wait, there's more! Since this was all shot after the season (and our post season), I asked them to reflect on the season: what they thought worked and what didn't, and what they would do differently next time.

Hopefully the video format gives some more information than we could get across in text and pictures alone. The aim was to give a good closeup look at our robot design (just like talking to us in the pits), but also benefit from our thoughts once the season was over.

As we all prepare for next season, I hope this provides some inspiration to other teams to look closely and reflect on what they did this year and make lots of notes, so we can all hit the ground running for the 2013 season.

(Any feedback on the video format welcome, so we can make that better too.)

The Youtube playlist is here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...ature=view_all

[rachelholladay]

Originally Posted by SteveGarward

Wildstang gets a lot of visitors in the pits at competitions, looking at our robot, seeing what we did, asking how we did things. This is great, but only for those at the same competitions!

Well I know I've done that before. Thank you for posting these videos! They look like they were a lot of work but they will be so helpful and interesting. I'm going run through the whole playlist...

[SteveGarward]

I forgot to mention.. There will be 1 or two more coming on electrical things. One topic in particular we get asked about a lot: our LEDs.

However, right now I'm not sure when these will get done. I will definitely post when they are up.

[AllenGregoryIV]

These are fantastic, I just watched all 6. I love that you talk about all the problems and how you solved it. So many times it seems like the power house teams just know how to do it right because we don't see all the iterations that happen in the background.

Thank you for putting this together, excellent job.

[dcarr]

Fantastic videos! 25 minutes well spent.

[mwmac]

Very nicely done! Sharing your design insights/process helps all of us become better.

[IKE]

Thanks for posting this. I really love in the chassis section the slow motion turning hop. This is a great way to document the pros/cons of descisions made during the season.

[apalrd]

Very nice videos.

I really liked how you talked a lot about the failures of the initial designs, and your solutions to all of them. It really shows that you have to continually redesign and fix the weak points of any robot to stay on top in FRC.

(It's interesting that you removed automatic tracking later in the season. We did that too).

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by apalrd

Very
(It's interesting that you removed automatic tracking later in the season. We did that too).

Us three. I suspect this was fairly common. Early game analysis resulted in a desire to be able to shoot from anywhere on the field. However, after playing the game it became clear that in most cases, shooting from a few specific locations like the corners of the key and the fender is a more foolproof approach, and it does not necessarily require automatic tracking.

[Samwaldo]

This was truly inspiring and educational. It really makes you realize that even the "powerhouse" amazing teams arent perfect. They change many things, and are never done, after the 6 weeks. This really taught me that you shouldn't be afraid to completely change a design in the robot, at any moment.

[Billfred]

I forwarded this to the 2815 email list and told them to watch it all. Fantastic work--once again, Wildstang gives us a video we're going to have to work hard to top.

[cadandcookies]

Excellent videos! Very informative, even for those of us who have competed with your team. I wish more teams would do these sort of breakdowns of their robot, as it's always very interesting to see the different solutions groups (especially successful ones) come up with to the same problem. For example, I had never heard of that particular method of tensioning. We may have to prototype it after this coming season!

I just have a small question about those drive modules-- how do you assemble everything within them? Like, do you put all the chains and stuff together and then put it into the frame and the stick the axles through (excuse my rough description)? Or is there some other method that you use?

[SenorZ]

This link is getting sent to my mentors and build team right away. Thanks for the insights!

[ZipTie3182]

Thank you so much for making these! I'm in awe of the though that goes into each component of the design and how elegantly each is implemented. You make me want to make my team better and make it to champs this year.

I urge the community to see powerhouse teams not as teams to hate against for being so good but to look on to as examples of incredible dedication and elegant engineering.

As a few said before, it really is incredible to see how drastically your design changed - especially before champs! Wow!

Totally taking notes on these videos....

[JVN]

These videos are FANTASTIC. It is great that you guys decided to put them together, and even better than you decided to share with the community.

Who is the gentleman doing most of the talking in these clips? I don't think I've met him before.

-John