Things you only do ONCE!

[yash101]

Originally Posted by Whippet

244. Let the shop monkeys attempt to modify the code in your absence.

"But we only wanted to reverse the direction of the motor!"

Well, that is sometimes required. I helped a rookie team fix their robot when they lost their arm and didn't have the right motor. There were only 3 kids and NO mentors so we showed them how to reverse the motor even though I don't code in LabView!

[magnets]

Not begin assembling the final robot until today (3 days left of build)

[Snapshot]

256. Find a 12VDC -> 5VDC converter labeled "BAD". Decide to find out why it's labeled as such.

Needless to say, lots of smoke came out, and I debated using its terrible smell as a deterrent.

[xXhunter47Xx]

Originally Posted by Snapshot

256. Find a 12VDC -> 5VDC converter labeled "BAD". Decide to find out why it's labeled as such.

Needless to say, lots of smoke came out, and I debated using its terrible smell as a deterrent.

Related,
257: accidentally touching the unprotected terminals on the pressure switch to the unprotected terminals of a spike.
Let's just say the magic smoke came out and it smelled like a sweatshop.

[adammiller3122]

258. Almost driving your Robot down stairs! (Oh wait, we did that twice in 1 week!) At least it didn't go down!!!

[Kingland093]

259. Wire the solenoid backwards and then spend the next 5 days trying to figure out why it isn't working

[Joseph Smith]

260. Use locktite on the bolts that hold your camera mount to a lexan panel.
261. Put the bumpers on the practice bot with a hammer.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Joseph Smith

260. Use locktite on the bolts that hold your camera mount to a lexan panel.

For those of you wondering about this item, locktite causes crazing of Lexan panels which leads to a failure of the panel.

[zachrobo1]

Originally Posted by yash101

I'm a programmer and I have the electrical memorized and I can manufacture anything I want to make! I think that's more of a meme than reality .

Thing is, that actually happened to us once

[Joseph Smith]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

For those of you wondering about this item, locktite causes crazing of Lexan panels which leads to a failure of the panel.

I'll say. Within a minute cracks were spreading from the bolt holes. I've been told by a very reliable source (the creator of Talons) that a drop of locktite will make a Talon casing crumble in minutes.

262. Tip your toolboxes on their sides for travel. (Everything falls to the back and you can't open the drawers without some struggle.)
263. Wire your robot with the wrong gauge rookie year, thus having to rewire almost the entire thing Friday morning at your Regional.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Kevin Selavko

240. Let a freshman solder unsupervised because he said he knew what he was doing.

I do this from time to time. Once I did it and watched in horror as he touched the hot end of the iron. True story!

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Kevin Selavko

240. Let a freshman solder unsupervised because he said he knew what he was doing.

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

I do this from time to time. Once I did it and watched in horror as he touched the hot end of the iron. True story!

I did this as well, only to smell the burning smell from our maple toped workbench.

[Chadfrom308]

It was a couple of students and I and no mentors on Thursday in the pit. We saw the robot in the bag and thought "Why are we wasting time!?" and we opened the bag without being inspected

Lets just say we wont ever do that again. Fortunately another mentor from another team saw us and told the judges and we were okay-ed

[JamesCH95]

264. Assign a veteran driver's ex-girlfriend to the drive team.