Apology from 612 @VCU, & also congrats...

[LeeD]

The Apology...
Just wanted to say sorry to some of the robot's Team 612 flipped =/

The 'wedge' (aka snow plow by the announer), wasn't designed for 'flipping' robots, in fact, when we used the wedge it lifts our front wheels off the ground slightly...

few misunderstandings I heard from teams:
1) We never intentionally flipped, I think we flipped 3 or 4 teams during autonomous mode over the course of the 3 days.. Also note that all flips during autonomous mode were with the -wedge up- so we didn't go under wheel bases with it.. and of the 1 or 2 that flipped under user control, none flipped due to the -wedge-, but because of their high center of gravity, and wheel base.. one of them rode up our back piece of bosch aluminum and flipped themselves, and i think we flipped another but I was always running around so I didn't see it =p
2) We had a nastily mean drive system, combined with a low center of gravity, we just seemed to have the power and height, with combination of low center of gravity, to tip a top-heavy robot over on the ramp during autonomous.


We never meant to flip so many robot's, our goal was to 1) Not be flipped, 2) Not be pushed, and 3) Intimidate.

Our drive system + wedge assured we'd fill those objectives...




The Congrats
On another Note.. VCU was -great!- We walked in there with no wedge(you may have noticed, practice round #1 we looked like one of the weakest robots on the field for practices)

By the 2nd match we had a 75% functional/reliable robot, and by the 4th competition match we were at 125%...

Fighting sparky(team 384) finally was a good fight, unfortunatly our operator & mentor didnt think we needed the wedge down against ya, and we didn't wanna flip people, unfortunatly we didn't push you to the other side of the field like i would have when time was running out =p Good job smacking the stack...


The competition was full of suprises, and I must admit choosing an alliance partner was a fun challenge, we had more then half the top 8 teams asking us for an alliance, and we were ranked ~16th


only 2 problems I had with the competition, which were, for the most part, made up for by the fun of competing and seeing all the awsome robots..
1) Wish we went with sparky for finals!!
2) Wish the 'penalty' for partnering with a non-functional team wasnt so high, over half our matches were almost 2 on 1



Well, in the end it was worth it, and I'll be driving for 4 hours every weekend(each way) next year from college to mentor my home town team... The FIRST competition is GREAT(overall), and it was a fun experience


Did Sparkey have any mechanical problems ya had to fix between fights?
I know our bot, once the wedge was tweaked and working, only really had physical damage to our wire mesh(protecting the electronics), and we had a wire(front left motor wire) that constantly became un-sodered at the end of the later matches due to the heat generated when we were pushing people I think, luckily our back motor's never went out (they are torqued up soo much we wouldnt move, pushed by other robots or pulling of the other motors)


Congrats to all the Semi-finalists, great Team Spirit 510 & 384, Congrats to all the award winners!


By the way, where is team 384 based?


Great match from Team 612 (Chantilly Academy--Northern Virginia), Wish we could join you all in nationals =)

[ggoldman]

Originally posted by LeeD
The Apology...

Did Sparkey have any mechanical problems ya had to fix between fights?
I know our bot, once the wedge was tweaked and working, only really had physical damage to our wire mesh(protecting the electronics), and we had a wire(front left motor wire) that constantly became un-sodered at the end of the later matches due to the heat generated when we were pushing people I think, luckily our back motor's never went out (they are torqued up soo much we wouldnt move, pushed by other robots or pulling of the other motors)




By the way, where is team 384 based?


Great match from Team 612 (Chantilly Academy--Northern Virginia), Wish we could join you all in nationals =)

Firstly... thank you for the kind words on behalf of team 384.

To answer your questions.

1) To the best of my knowledge we did not break any major parts. (i believe the only thing that broke was one of our wings which we stopped using by the third or so match. The only work on the robot was done as preventative measures..
Also, due to our refabricated drive system, or motors and fuses stayed at a moderate temperature.

A side note on flipping...while im here..
We were prepared for robot flipping and our arm was origionally designed only to flip our robot back over if it was flipped. We then found other uses for it..including stacking ironically. Also, we built our robot with a steel base in anticipation of this year's game.

2) Where are we based?
384 hails from J.R.Tucker high school in Richmond,Va (about 15 minutes away from where the regional was held)

again thank you for the kind words and please ask if u have any more..

Congradulations to everyone at VCU for an awesome competition...the best one i've seen in four years of FIRST

Gabe Goldman
FIRST Volunteer
Mentor team 384
ASME/VCU FIRST STUDENT COORDINATOR

[LeeD]

Sure, will i see you all next year?(at VCU/richmond area comp.) Though I'm going to be a mentor driving down from Penn. State (/boggle), It'll be nice to be able to party at the regional next year(instead of rushing, working, co-ordinating everything, and reminding people "5 minutes", "4 minutes", "3 minutes.. get that motor back on!")

Ya'll dont mind me cheering for sparkey with you when 612 'aint against ya, do ya?

[ggoldman]

NOT at all LEE!!
we didnt mind people cheering with us...and we cheered for other teems too!!

If you are going to mentor next year, I'd like to suggest u sign up to be a volunteer at the competition. I did it for my first time and it made me feel so good after the comp. So if you are gonna be down there anyways..maybe it's something you could look into.

Oh and its a good way to meet alot of new business people.. including the FIRST staff..who are a great group of hard-working people..

Gabe G

[LeeD]

Hmm.. havnt looked into the mentoring stuff yet...

Can you mentor, volunteer, and still work with your team ?


I hope next year I'll take the easier & long-distance job of helping my team build a website during the week, since 4 hours comutes arn't too friendly =)

Didn't know they had a website competition! Would have -loved- to do our's this year =p

[ggoldman]

Lee...yes you can..i can attest to that..

If you remember..I was the one with the walkie talkie telling everyone to sit down in front during the elims...beyond that ..i did VIP tours and met some interesting people..including some top dogs from nasa...

i volunteered..and still had time to spend with the team...


if you want more info..PM me your e-mail and i'll pass along the contacts..

Gabe

[Ryan Dognaux]

612, your robot definately had some serious power behind it... It's like a deadly quarterpipe! It was definately intimidating, Good luck (even though you probably won't need it )

[Joe Matt]

Originally posted by ggoldman
Lee...yes you can..i can attest to that..

If you remember..I was the one with the walkie talkie telling everyone to sit down in front during the elims...beyond that ..i did VIP tours and met some interesting people..including some top dogs from nasa...

i volunteered..and still had time to spend with the team...


if you want more info..PM me your e-mail and i'll pass along the contacts..

Gabe

Gabe was also the one in the stylish reflective green vest directing traffic in the pit loading area near the street on Thursday.

[RLopez]

...lol.. in the morning freezing