What was your teams worst expierence during competition?

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Dr. Shocker

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2011roc_qm41

If we ignore the fact that in 2011 year we got second in 2 regionals where we lost to the winning alliance by less than 5 pts, and in both cases a mini-bot decided it didn't want to work, I would have to say this match. During autonomous the uber-tube opened our pneumatic valve, so we had no pressure, and we were eventually able to put the tube we had onto the rack, but that was basically it the whole match. If it hadn't been for that mistake, we probably would have ranked second instead of third. Oh well.

That is because the 1126/1551 combination is cursed in qualifying matches, for reasons none can fathom.

Our worst year yet was this year--we had a robot that performed at home, and was an absolute catastrophe on the field. We somehow got picked to go into the tournament and had our two best games in the quarterfinals...as soon as it was all over, our bot was working as we designed it to work. :/

[lark95]

Not so much a bad thing but a bummer and very funny in retrospect was during one of our qualification matches last year. We were playing some pretty hard defense against another very good team and we hit each other so hard that both of our bot powered off. The funny thing is that one of our alliance partners also passed us a ball over the truss and we caught, after we were dead. It ended up fine as we got the points for the catch and the refs got a new ball in pretty fast.

[Riverdance]

Entire 2013 season. The whole thing. Boom.

In terms of specific events, we'd have to go with Groton District Event 2014. We were low on resources, especially money, and had moved into our new build space two weeks before Kickoff. Somehow, we put out a robot that we were pretty proud of and excited about. And he (Atlas was his name) failed to work on even the most rudimentary level... we were lucky if we got to drive around arbitrarily and play defense.

On the bright side, we were able to rebound and do well at Hartford later that season and during our offseasons!

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by Riverdance

Entire 2013 season. The whole thing. Boom.

It was not pretty. But inspiration often rises out of the ashes of failure

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

And I'm not worried about the team, either, I'm confident they'll do just fine without the current senior class. Even though our performance on the field this year wasn't up to our usual standard, I asked the group afterwords who was inspired by what they'd seen at the CT Regional. Everybody put their hand up. So I know they'll be alright.

I think you guys proved two years ago me right.

[Riverdance]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

I think you guys proved two years ago me right.

And we're very happy that we did!!!

[jtrv]

2013 season. Second competition (WPI) of the season for us, and it was a week 2 regional. We were one of only a few teams to have experience beforehand, so we had a good idea of what was going on with the best strategies.

Through qualifiers, we were dominating, and had absolutely zero issues. We would be sitting in our pit doing absolutely nothing between quals except changing batteries. Seriously, that's it. Teams were jealous (I would be too).

In our 12th of 13 qualifying matches, 2168 found a way to jam our shooter. Props to them, they were the first to play strong defense against us. We jammed our shooter and had to hang in order to get the win.

Context: Our robot was never designed to hang. We looked at it a few days before bag day and thought, "Hey, lets attach some hooks and see how it hangs." Well, we were able to hang. We didn't entirely think through all the torque being placed on the arm though..

While we went to hang, our gears in the rotating arm broke and our bot went outside the size limits as a result - there wasn't anything preventing the arm from just flopping around.

We lost that match, and won our 13th, seeding 1st with a record of 12-1. No big deal - we were pretty happy.

We fixed it through some pretty... ghetto ways of fixing it (ie finding a replacement gear at the last second that most of us don't know where it came from).

We went through to the finals in elims with a local team (20) and faced another local team (3044) and... 2168. Yeah. The only team to beat us is now facing us in the finals. And now they know how to beat us, too.

Game 1 - we play around their defense, and win, 100-87. Not our cleanest win, but 2168 played some mean defense, and we had a 100% defense third bot, so only us + 20 were scoring, and we got shut down a lot.

Game 2 - We get jammed by 2168. Exceptional driving and defense by them really. We lost 64-89. Things are looking rough - we're really close to breaking and we don't have another replacement gear.

Game 3 - We can't take the risk of getting jammed super early in the game. We decide to sit in the player station and shoot frisbees across the field to 20 from the station so we can't be guarded. 20 had an incredible floor pickup, so they did fine in picking them up (we weren't a full court shooter).

We couldn't keep up with 3044 + 3280's scoring. Down 58-68 with 5 seconds left. We wing it across the field, debating whether or not to try to hang (if we hang, we tie it, if we break, we lose due to penalty). We don't go for it, because it looks like 20 has the hang down with 1-2 seconds left. 20 doesn't get the entire hang (off balanced, 1 wheel was touching the ground), and we lost 58-68.

We haven't gone to champs since rookie year in 2009, and that was our closest yet. It wasn't our 'worst' experience, but it was pretty heartbreaking.

[TheModMaster8]

how Aerial assist robot could never shoot (release the dog gear) that held down out shooter, turns out after everyone on our team gave up to determine what caused it, me and my brother looked into it and saw that the piston that retracted the dog gear back, was mounted at a angle so it wasn't pulling straight back, instead it bound, also the swerve drive we used never worked and kept frying the turning motors (window motors) My brother and i also figured that one out as well lol, turns out that the POT we used to get the position on the wheels where cheap one, as they said on the package, "Accurate within 20% of overall value" meaning that when at the 0 mark you could be plus or minus 20% of 0, this caused the motors to always try to readjust them selfs and eventually burn out, also our robot wouldnt connect properly to the game fields, ther was at least 5 sec to 20 sec delay from controller to robot, we had TI look at our labview cade and they said everything was correct and they didn't know what was going on and that they would send this straight up to HQ, All in all it was a TERRIBLE season though one of the most insightful that I've been apart of.

[Rob3653]

This year at Champs.

We decided we were going to make canburglars on Monday before championship. So we ordered some parts from McMaster, 1" x 1" x 72" long polycarb tube. We got it shipped to our hotel on Wendesday. When we stopped by to pick up the order, we noticed that we didn't get what we ordered, instead we got it in 48" length...

To sum it up, our canburglar would have been finished Thursday during lunch. But no, we didn't get them finished until our LAST match on Friday. They were pretty $@#$@#$@#$@# fast too.

Thanks McMaster....

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by jtrv

2013 season. Second competition (WPI) of the season for us, and it was a week 2 regional. We were one of only a few teams to have experience beforehand, so we had a good idea of what was going on with the best strategies.

Through qualifiers, we were dominating, and had absolutely zero issues. We would be sitting in our pit doing absolutely nothing between quals except changing batteries. Seriously, that's it. Teams were jealous (I would be too).

In our 12th of 13 qualifying matches, 2168 found a way to jam our shooter. Props to them, they were the first to play strong defense against us. We jammed our shooter and had to hang in order to get the win.

Context: Our robot was never designed to hang. We looked at it a few days before bag day and thought, "Hey, lets attach some hooks and see how it hangs." Well, we were able to hang. We didn't entirely think through all the torque being placed on the arm though..

While we went to hang, our gears in the rotating arm broke and our bot went outside the size limits as a result - there wasn't anything preventing the arm from just flopping around.

We lost that match, and won our 13th, seeding 1st with a record of 12-1. No big deal - we were pretty happy.

We fixed it through some pretty... ghetto ways of fixing it (ie finding a replacement gear at the last second that most of us don't know where it came from).

We went through to the finals in elims with a local team (20) and faced another local team (3044) and... 2168. Yeah. The only team to beat us is now facing us in the finals. And now they know how to beat us, too.

Game 1 - we play around their defense, and win, 100-87. Not our cleanest win, but 2168 played some mean defense, and we had a 100% defense third bot, so only us + 20 were scoring, and we got shut down a lot.

Game 2 - We get jammed by 2168. Exceptional driving and defense by them really. We lost 64-89. Things are looking rough - we're really close to breaking and we don't have another replacement gear.

Game 3 - We can't take the risk of getting jammed super early in the game. We decide to sit in the player station and shoot frisbees across the field to 20 from the station so we can't be guarded. 20 had an incredible floor pickup, so they did fine in picking them up (we weren't a full court shooter).

We couldn't keep up with 3044 + 3280's scoring. Down 58-68 with 5 seconds left. We wing it across the field, debating whether or not to try to hang (if we hang, we tie it, if we break, we lose due to penalty). We don't go for it, because it looks like 20 has the hang down with 1-2 seconds left. 20 doesn't get the entire hang (off balanced, 1 wheel was touching the ground), and we lost 58-68.

We haven't gone to champs since rookie year in 2009, and that was our closest yet. It wasn't our 'worst' experience, but it was pretty heartbreaking.

Getting that first win will be even more special once you finally achieve it.
This season, we helped 7 teams qualify to go to the World Championships for the 1st time ever. One of which waited 11 years to finally get a win.
It was bitter sweet considering it was that same team that picked us back in 2011, only for us to fall short losing in the finals that year. They picked us again at the IE regional week one.
Those moments absolutely meant more to me than our team winning the regionals.

[NHoffmann]

I don't know about worst of all time (that probably goes to our 2013 season, but I wasn't there for that), but this year, at MSC, we burnt out our lift CIM. This was while we were vying for a spot in the top 3. We ended up dropping to 6th, which was actually perfect for us, but still, at the time, it seemed not great.

[GeeTwo]

T.R.S.
Our Ultimate Ascent robot (our second year) put nearly every frisbee it launched into the high goal. After about three rounds, we ranked in the top eight at Bayou, but dropped to #20, and didn't get picked because of TRS: Twitchy Robot Syndrome. The control system was not designed into the layout, and we had a combined controls/programming department that was definitely more focused on programming. The result was a bunch of loose, crossed, and unlabeled connections. We also forgot to close the pneumatic exhaust vent a couple of times. Finally, in our last qualifying match, the piston that lifted frisbees into the roller wheels jammed hard. The prototype piece had never been properly rebuilt. It was over a year before we revived that robot as a demo piece, and we had to completely rebuild the trigger/lifter. And oh, yes, we went mecanum that year and couldn't play a very good defense when we couldn't shoot due to a lack of air or a spinning wheel, or the feeder not feeding. The climber had to be completely redesigned at least three times to fit around the shooter, and it almost worked the one time we tried; about one more second of turn on that threaded rod would have done it.
The next year we split controls and programming, and managed to recruit an actual pneumatics guy (who is also a former IBEW member) onto our mentor squad. He was able to teach the kids stuff about wiring and plumbing that the rest of us mentors might possibly have eventually figured out. No more TRS.

[cpeister]

Originally Posted by Dr. Shocker

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2011roc_qm41

If we ignore the fact that in 2011 year we got second in 2 regionals where we lost to the winning alliance by less than 5 pts, and in both cases a mini-bot decided it didn't want to work, I would have to say this match. During autonomous the uber-tube opened our pneumatic valve, so we had no pressure, and we were eventually able to put the tube we had onto the rack, but that was basically it the whole match. If it hadn't been for that mistake, we probably would have ranked second instead of third. Oh well.

I still think about Buckeye 2011 from time to time.

[Omer Huly]

Israel "Falafel" (a smaller FRC like preseason event, 1-on-1) 2012: During the finals we bumped into the opposing robot which caused our power cable from the breaker to the PDB to disconnect, and our robot was dead for the rest of the match...

Israel Offseason 2014: Finals again, one of the opposing robot bumped into which caused the cable from the cRIO to the sidecar to disconnect and after a few seconds we lost communication... (you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=693J_CghzWg)

Israel Regional 2015: After about 9 out of our 10 matches with communication problems (Although inconsistent), the FTA looked at our electrical system and said that the 10 amp fuse was not inserted correctly, all the way through. After that we just laughed and pushed it harder, problem solved! We made it to the quarterfinals and had a great first match. But in the second match our chain, which connected two sprockets of the container arm, just flew out of the robot, due to the sprockets not being aligned to each other, (we had an extra spacer) and paralyzed it for the rest of the game...

Both the SBPLI and Chesapeake Regionals this year were runnig smoothly without any special problem (except for the limit switch stucking in the SBPLI finals which allowed the container arm to move down but not up again...)

2015 Championship: We run into a weird problem with a delay in our elevator (not such a big deal but still annoying). We tried to rewrite all of our code into a new lighter version, but still no success. After some experts looked at our code and electrical system they advised us to check our fuses. As I heard we lent fuses from 254 and the delay was gone! (thank you Cheesy Poofs, your fuses are megical).

All in all, I had a great time and with each break and fix I learned something new (especially about fuses)!

[I_AM_Clayton]

In 2014 our team decided to make a pvc cage that slid on drawer sliders it went backwards to allow our catapult to go down and then catch the ball and forwards once the ball was catapulted (turns out drawer sliders aren't meant to be torqued) we had cables attached to the base of the robot and the cage which in the end didn't help. In about 4 of our matches our catch fell off and bent the drawer sliders....in one match we drug the cage around slowly accumulating more and more penalty points. you can see one of the matches here: https://youtu.be/9KtJB_j8s_Q?list=PL...kGEuzrpMogT S (skip to 2:04 where come into view and wait a few seconds)

[bigbeezy]

With 1592:

2008 Champs my senior year: Friday afternoon, my dad accidentally knocked over our driver station (why it was standing on end at the corner of the pit idk...) and it broke one of the driver joysticks. All we had for spares were the awful white things that used to come in the kit. We epoxied it back together over night. Robot did excellent all through quals. We were the undefeated #1 seed in Curie. Picked an excellent alliance (if I recall correctly we had 3 of the top 7 OPR teams in the division). Then our robot Xena, slowly and painfully died. First the shifters wouldn't fully engage so we had to manually lock in into high gear. Then we lost a key in our arm so it wouldn't raise, mentor cut off an end of an allen key to fix it on the field. Because the white joystick was so awful we switched to the epoxied one, lasted one match then the next it snaped and had to drive with a 1/2" stub for the remainder. Then the drivetrain finally died in the last semi match and we couldn't move. Had we'd been 50% we would have made finals. That was rough...

In 2006 quarters of Galileo our main breaker developed a micro crack (mentor took it to work and found it afterward). After auto we would lose all power until someone hit the bot. Literally that was all that we needed was to be nudged and it would come back to life. After the 1st match we planned on a partner (MARS i believe) to hit us if it happened again except they had comms issues. Basically had 5 minutes of front row seats to watch Rush and (our future friends) Winnovation score at will.

Last but not least would have to be 2007 at Waterloo. We had terrible luck in quals, finishing 4-7 mostly because our opponents were good and when we'd get good alliances our partners would break down. Thankfully Blizzard liked us and picked us. During quals we took 1503's alliance to 4 matches. During the last one we were defending 1503 who had a spoiler and instead of me telling my aux driver to drop our ringer we hold onto it while playing D. During the pushing and banging the ringer slips out of our claw and lands perfectly on our own scored rung, essentially spoiling ourselves. Had that not happened we would have played Simbotics and OP (OP's first competition ever). Not saying that we would have beat them (cause they were really good) but I sure wish we had the opportunity, would have been fun matches either way.

Its struggles like this that make this year's success with 2338 all the more satisfying.