How do you feel toward you robot?

What he said...lol

This is the first year I've been feeling so-so about our robot. I guess its because this year I've been the most dedicated, taken the most responsibility and did the most work out of my 4 years on the team.

Its really weird that I feel this way, as it seems to be the exact opposite of the previous replies. Its scary, knowing that what I did in those 6 weeks effects our performance at competition. Nothing in my entire life has ever been more important to me.

During build, we have had to make compromises due to the time limitations and I feel like we're in the mid-range of our potential. Somehow, while we where shipping the robot, I had an overwhelming sense of guilt, that I let my team down. We could accomplish so much, yet we shipped a robot that did not meet my expectations.

I really want to dissolve this mindset, I wonder if anyone has any advice to overcome this?

[irishninja]

Nothing but love. At my school we have a tradition where at the end of the year the seniors post crush lists from the entire high school career up on one day. Last year, a senior and now mentor put the four robots he was here for up there to. Again Nothing but love. Love love and umm... more love. Its tired love, but its love. How many times can i use the word love in this lovely post?

[Dan Zollman]

Maybe this is heresy, and maybe it's just because I didn't spend a lot of time working on the robot itself (I was doing a lot of other stuff), but I don't consider our robot a person. The rest of our team said "goodbye" TO the robot, and wrote notes on the inside of the crate to keep the robot company while it's away.

I signed the crate since everyone else was doing that, but the robot really doesn't have feelings. It's not that I don't like the robot, I just don't think it's appropriate to spend time talking to the robot right before it ships.

[Artless_Grace]

If our robot was a bit more soft, I think I'd hug it. But I don't think that matters, because I've already hugged it when no one was looking... >.>

Err...

I'd say, the only thing I don't like about our robot is that hugging it is an accomplishment, and we needed a bit more defense. I'm constantly afraid someone is going to stick an arm in one of our conveyor belts and snap us in half. I was also disappointed that none of my ideas were included on the robot. But as long as its functioning, ^_^ Its okeday with me.

Now, if only we could attach wings..

[Dan Petrovic]

Our robot could definately be better.

If you don't have your camera aiming your shooter, then you're in trouble. In our first practice match we fell over and our Horizonal Aiming was busted. In our last practice match our camera got busted, yet we still scored a bunch of balls by eye.

We go into the qualification rounds today thinking we can score a lot.

Out of around 70 shots made today, we scored one.

I'm extremely happy with every component on our robot. The rollers suck up balls in the blink of an eye, the storage keeps them from getting clogged, and the shooter is the most consistant thing I've ever seen, however, in competition we can't do anything. We can push. We have strong two speed transmissions with four wheel drive so that keeps us from being completely useless.

We are making big changes starting tomorrow and hopefully finishing during the Practice rounds of Nationals. Scrapping the shooter and turning our robot strictly into a side scoring bot. We are still keeping every thing we take off for demonstration purposes. Flying balls are much more interesting than rolling balls.

It's an amazing robot. An accurate shooter, fast rollers, and smooth storage, but in competition we can't use any of that.

[phrontist]

This is the best robot we've ever built. Last year's was a great machine, but didn't really play the game too well (well, in the offeseason it did...). The year before we were clueless (but enthusiastic!) and had no hope of getting anywhere. This year, we were more organized and purposeful in our work than ever before.

As far as what you're describing:

I've been there, I think we all have. But you can take comfort in knowing that you fought the good fight (Unless you didn't, but I'm sure you did...) and everything that robot has or doesn't have is the direct result of your efforts. FIRST hasn't really taught me a great deal technically, but it has taught me a lot about working with other people and the discipline and organization required to work efficiently. So try to look on the bright side, or the ambiguous possibilities of the future!

Failing that, take solace in having come up with a great thread topic.

[akshar]

i know i have already posted, but for some reason, i can not edit my old post so here it goes:

i saw our bot perform today and all i can say is: different
Regit was built to shoot, very inconsistent, so we play defense, and we are THE best, so how do i feel about my robot? Regit is the best and i wouldnt trade him for any other robot

[rachal]

Finding out the shooter didn't work after finally getting to test the day before ship wasn't so fun. (Tiny range, and the balls just flopped to the side sometimes.)

Redesigning, building, and testing it by the end of the next day -- and finding out that it was about an order of magnitude more accurate and powerful -- WAS pretty fun.

[Rick TYler]

Well... we just went 3-7 at PNW, and the 8th place alliance picked a BLT* over us to be their third and final alliance partner, so this isn't a good time to talk about your question.

* Brave Little Toaster -- a kitbot with no game systems at all. A box on wheels. In this case, a box on wheels that lasted about 1-1/2 minutes of the first Finals match before dropping a transmission and a big handful of chain on the ground. We posted up against the best bots in our tournament for ten matches without anything breaking and a BLT is chosen instead of use. Six-wheel-drive, 4x4 aluminum square tube frame, drives up the ramp at any angle, occasionally scores the center goal in auto, and we get left at home while a transmission-coughing toaster goes to the prom. But I'm not bitter. Really. Just wait 'til next year. (Yes, I am a lifelong Dodger fan -- can you tell?).

[Petey]

Um...well, I'm an alum, but 1073's robot was somewhat subpar. We graduated almost our entire team last year (80% of the team is freshman this year), and there were some power struggles within the team this year, so we ended up building a robot that barely worked (it broke in 5 or 6 out of the 9 matches).

That said...by some crazy, I mean INSANE good luck, we still ranked 11th and grabbed the 6th seed. It was pretty surreal...and it gave the newbies a taste of the playoffs.

Still...I mean, we're a 4 year old team, and we've been to the finals every year, so I guess I can't complain. But I don't know if we've ever built--or even tried to build--a really dominating type bot. We usually just build a variation on a plow, because of KISS. And only in 2003 did that work really well, because we could herd balls better than anyone else and our two human players had unheard of accuracy.

So I'm gonna keep in touch with the team and see what they continue to do. And OP, I feel your pain about your last year in FIRST. If you help try to start up a new team somewhere, it helps ease it.

--Petey

[Dillon Compton]

I absolutely feel your pain.

We started the year off very well; we came up with a design and roughed out concepts very quickly, did research and prototyping and everything. Thats when the whole thing stalled; access to our money was a major issue, and we didnt get to order any parts we needed until middle of week 2, at the earliest. During our delay, much of the team lost sight of the original design, and we sacrificed at least a weeks worth of build time pursuing complicated designs we had decided against from the beginning. This left us with about three weeks in which to build a robot- we almost did it, and were proud of it- then we weighed our robot. we realized, after projecting the weight of electronics and additional components that we needed, we would be 20+ lbs overweight. So, at 11pm on Saturday the 18th of February, we completly redesigned the thing. Our issue was that we are very weight conscientious usually, EVERYTHING was already speedholed, and we couldent really sacrifice much more weight while maintaining any function- sacrifices were made. We began brainstorming alternative ways of regaining function, and continued re-designing and fabricating the 'bot- unfortunately this meant that we shipped the robot at a status to be expected at- and this is perhaps being over-generous- the middle or end of week 4. We have a functioning drivebase(we think), and can play defense if nothing else (and we are 95% sure we can score in the corner goals).

I work on mechanical design and build. I was needed on the physical building of the robot. I helped out, and busted my $@#$@#$@# for 6 weeks on this thing, and monday night, the 20th rolls around. It's about 2:30am, and the mentors are rolling out, I catch a ride home with one of them(my dad), and the status of the robot is 100% untested and 25% unbuilt. This was especially frusturating because this is my second year as programmer and electrical, and the first year in which I really knew what I was doing; I'm confident that given the time to write and test code, we could have been aiming with the shooter, using the gyro, and all sorts of other lovely things.

As it stands now, our robot does not have a single piece of wire on it- that is right folks, I will wire our robot on thursday morning, over at Drexel regional.
Feel free to stop on by if you know how to wield a crimper . There is not a single line of code written, because the "final" design is still being hashed out in fix-it window discussions, and the sensor situation is looking grim.


That doesnt mean I dont like the robot- I certainly get frusturated sometimes, especially when I know there are things I could and would do if I had been given the robot to wire and program by the end of week 4 or 5- but I still recognize that, at the worst, it will drive and it will be something that we built with our own two hands. We dont have a fancy machine shop- hell, all we have is a drill press, a miter saw, a grinding wheel, and a bandsaw, plus drills and assorted hand-tools - and we dont have professional software engineers or groups of dedicated parents. What we do have, though, is a group of kids from philly who love this stuff, a very dedicated science teacher/college admissions councillour, a very kind and useful electrical engineer, and a couple of college students. Together, we make this thing run and we enjoy ourselves- despite the occaisional moment of frusturation or tension.

It sounds like you are frusturated, and rightly so, but remember that even if you go out there and score NO balls in autonomous, it's not the end of the world. Everyone always swears that FIRST is their life, and in many ways it is; it certainly dominates my thoughts for 6 weeks, and is at least present the rest of the year. But when you get down to it, FIRST is really not so much about the robot, and actually not even about the experience. FIRST is really about opening your- and the worlds- eyes to the reality, wonder, and challenge that is inherint in science and engineering. I know that before FIRST, for me at least, robots were mystical things that I never hoped to understand; I planned on going to school for law, and being a lawyer. I hadnt even considered careers in math, science or engineering (I am now planning on dual majoring in neuroscience and engineering in undergrad and doing graduate work either in biomimetics or organic computing). Additionally, after dealing with "the build" and the stress of competitions, I will never claim or let it be claimed within my hearing, that "that science competition" or "the robotics team" is NOT a real sport/challenge. This is probably, as Woodie Flowers once put it, "the hardest thing [we've] ever done". And thats the way, uh-huh uh-huh, we like it (uh-huh uh-huh).

If nothing else, remember that you can look down on the field with pride, at something that moves (and no, not everyones robot moves- ours didn't sometimes in 2004), and at something that you built; you said you worked on the mechanical team, as well as programming. You say you are frusturated because you didnt get a chance to program it amazingly with time to test and perfect.

I say be proud, because you stepped up to the plate and built the thing- you did not go hide in the closet and write code, belligerantly believing that you would have a day, a week or more with the robot- you got out there and did what you needed to do.

I still wish we had shipped our robot in a bit more "complete" of a stage, and i'm sure you wish the same, but that doesnt mean it isnt an accomplishment or worthwhile; if you, or anyone, learned something from this experience, it has been justified.

Good luck this year, and feel free to stop by 1394's pit at Drexel or Nationals, or to email or AIM me, if you need some cheering up

-Dillon Compton
Team 1394

Edit: Holy crap, that sure is long!

[YonZ]

Originally Posted by irishninja

At my school we have a tradition where at the end of the year the seniors post crush lists from the entire high school career up on one day. Last year, a senior and now mentor put the four robots he was here for up there to.

yes, I testify for that occurance...

It's great seeing it all come together in the 3/4 months that it is the focus of our lives. I love being able to feel proud about our robot and being able to point out the parts and holes and stuff that I contributed.
Having been on my team for three years, I know that feeling of nostalgia you get whenever you lay eyes on an old robot-- it brings back wonderful memories of build and competition, and the many reasons I suffer from robot-fever during off-season.

[Rick TYler]

Dillon's post should be moved to a new thread and made sticky. Great insights. He managed to put things in perspective.

[mrmummert]

Hello all...

Hmmm I mave mixed feelings about the robot we have this year compared to last year....This years robot was a pain to plan, build,make changes to,stay in weight and correct problems compared to last years. But then again it won us the regional so I guess it made up for all the trouble it gave. Fittingly we named it "Trouble".

Last years although it had some upper arm alterations pretty much was built
as planned and have very few problems...even for a rookie robot. It got us thru regionals were we placed 6th and luckly (as rookie all stars) to atlanta.
We've used the heck out of it (we tested over and over again our current 2006 robot auto modes on it until this years was ready) and
used it for demostrations all the rest of the year with very little trouble
again. We called it MB (for Mechanical Bronco) and were gonna call this years
MB2 but as I said...this years was such a pain.......