Best impromptu fixes of 2013

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by xraymypanda

I've been wondering about all those blockers, could one have been made rigid enough to deflect a dull court shot and redirect it into the blocking alliance's goal?

it is interesting that you mentioned that... we were looking at a trampoline type net that would redirect those shots into the two point goal... never panned out though...spin makes it hard to redirect properly..

[Gregor]

We had an issue with our feeder not being tall enough for the Frisbee, so we pulled a sign off our tool cart.

Before:


After:

[Yipyapper]

2252: The Mavericks went to Buckeye, apparently made their robot from then to qualifications, turned out to be the best robot there and won the competition. They got onto an alliance at worlds, too.

There is no magic involved in stories like these. Just FIRST teams doing what they do best: working hard.

[theawesome1730]

Originally Posted by DevenStonow

A rookie team we mentored had a welded aluminum frame for the "superstructure" of their robot. While visiting them at the Mt. Olive District, the corners of this frame were covered with duct tape. Somehow, the welds broke(I don't know anything really about welding, so I have no idea if this is the proper term), so their solution was to keep the main frame of their robot together with ducttape

Broken welds is the correct term. Seems like poor welds or violent drivers lol

[CTbiker105]

Originally Posted by xraymypanda

I've been wondering about all those blockers, could one have been made rigid enough to deflect a dull court shot and redirect it into the blocking alliance's goal?

I was thinking something similar to that. But rather than deflecting the shots, it would feed it through their own shooter, directly into their 3 pt. goal. It'd be a pretty cool tactic, although risky because you're relying on an FCS on the opposing alliance.

[GUI]

We had one of our VexPro ballshifter output shafts fall out in our last qualification match in Las Vegas. We glued it back in, then to prevent subsequent failure we screwed some oak planks to the chassis to prevent the shaft from being able to slide out of the hub.

[MathMaven]

Once, our chain broke just before the match. We had no time left, so the drive team zip tied the chain together until we could fix it formally. It worked perfectly.

And we've been using zip ties as quick chain fixes ever since.