Reduced-space Demos?

[EricH]

Have you (or your team) ever had to do a driving demo in a space that is less than half the size of the field? If so, how did you do it? Please describe the situatuion briefly and tell what you did.

If you have not had to do something like this, please don't say "I would have done it this way." The reason for this request is that you were not there (in all probability) and there may have been technical details that are not included by someone who was and may have affected how it was done.

P.S. I will post my team's experience after some others have posted.

[santosh]

A lot of our outreach events only alow us less than half the space than the field is for driving.

We usually just let some of the kids at our events play with the controls and stuff. Usually we don't activate the manipulator for them but just let thm play with the drive train. we have only had 2 semi-bad experinces.
1. girl started to accidentally ram ino some chairs becuase our holonomic omni drive was very hard to control.
2. We were stacking chairs with our tetra stacking robot and our tilt mechnaism screwed up, but we fixed that later.

We always had someone with their finger on the disable switch. I hope this helped.

[scitobor 617]

My team has gone to our state fair for the past two years. We have been given about half the size of the field and smaller to operate in. It was not difficult for us to operate in the half field area, however we always take our smallest robot with use and our most recently built robot. We were also given an area to operate in which was about 10 feet 20 feet. We had small fence sections to block off the area and had two team members standing outside of the fence to talk to people and keep little kids away from the fence. It is always a good idea to have your most responsible team members driving because injuring by-standers is never good.

Our team has done a demo with not as much space as we would like. The way we coped was by just showing off our driving, a small capping sequence, and our crab drive. We then parked Poseidon, and let them look up close as we answered questions and bragged about our achievments.

[sanddrag]

All the time. We hold driver practice in a computer lab with tables lined with Apple flat screen monitors. Haven't clipped one yet. The key to any non-FIRST robot run is having a designated alert person on a disable switch.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

All the time. We hold driver practice in a computer lab with tables lined with Apple flat screen monitors. Haven't clipped one yet. The key to any non-FIRST robot run is having a designated alert person on a disable switch.

I'd be too scared to drive That's a lot of hardware to risk breaking. Is there nowhere else for you to practice?

[coastertux]

We had a demo at a car dealer that sponsored us in a space with just enough room for one goal. We managed to drive the robot, pick up a tetra, and cap the goal. Luckily we didn't screw up as there were huge glass windows!

[Conor Ryan]

We did a demo at our middle school about 2 weeks ago, we had a Quarter Sized field. We fit 1 small goal and an akwardly places Automatic Loading station. It was akward but we were able to drive around just fine. It was tight but we shouldn't need a half sized field to play on in the first place, actually come to think of it, it was pretty good practise for our drivers since they had to avoid scratching the stage behind us, as well as drive on a small field.

[Ian Curtis]

My team has never done a demo with more than 1/4 of the field (becuase that's how much carpet we have). You just need to put the goal in the corner and load tetras from an opposing corner.

Another Experience:

Before last years robot was taken apart to build our little bot we were given an elevated carpet square thing measuring 16 feet by 16 feet. We had barriers around so no one got to close, and the mobile goal. We were a ball picker upper so we'd bring a bunch of balls, but a couple on the square, pick them up with the robot, then release them for the kids to shoot into the mobile goal. People like interactive demos .

[spears312]

Last week our teams driver and myself took the robot over to a cub scout day camp in Tampa and we had a strip of side walk (great for wearing down wheels) boarded on both sides by grass. He just drove the thing back and forward and handled the single tetra we brought, then we let the kids take and give the robot the tetra which worked out well with our automated griping manipulator.

[evelyn1503]

we do a demo in our caff at least once every cupple week.... we wint to one of our poncers places and we had at the most 30 by 10 space and 7 feet hiy seling ( so we couldent do anny arme stuff) but the drivers drove carfuly and we stacke a cupple tetras we dont go in hiy gear.... we get the job done

[Al Skierkiewicz]

A really good way to do this is get a 25 ft serial cable and tether during the demo. Make sure that there is a small jumper between the tether port and a connector affixed to the robot so you don't damage the RC. While driving around, if the robot gets out of control just pull the tether and the robot will stop.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

A really good way to do this is get a 25 ft serial cable and tether during the demo. Make sure that there is a small jumper between the tether port and a connector affixed to the robot so you don't damage the RC. While driving around, if the robot gets out of control just pull the tether and the robot will stop.

Agreed. 25' and 50' available here You could have that "small jumper" be a F-F adapter ($2) with the M-F cable.

[santosh]

What we also did once when we didn't have tetra's and were in a small space, was we stacked chairs up.

[geeknerd99]

We had to pack 10 people, the robot, and the control board into a space about 7 feet deep and 12 wide. All we had room for was turning our turret and stacking two chairs.

Later that night, we worked in a larger, but more linear area. I was to drive the robot blind around a corner (and a copier), pick up a tetra in front of the school board meeting area (I could see the robot at this point), deliver it to them, and then drive in reverse, tracing my path the way a I came, and end up right back where I started (driving blind the last section).

Now that's parallel parking.