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| View Poll Results: How many robots (FRC size) do teams keep and where do you store them and other parts? | |||
| 1 robot |
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12 | 10.81% |
| 2-3 robots |
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48 | 43.24% |
| 4-5 robots |
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24 | 21.62% |
| 6+ robots |
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27 | 24.32% |
| Classroom at your school |
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31 | 27.93% |
| Closet at your school |
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34 | 30.63% |
| Machine/Auto shop at your school |
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25 | 22.52% |
| Team Members/Mentors' garages |
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11 | 9.91% |
| Sponsor site |
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16 | 14.41% |
| Other site |
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16 | 14.41% |
| Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 111. You may not vote on this poll | |||
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#16
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
We have a bunch of our robots dating back to 2001, if I recall... They usually end up in people's garages or stored in the school when our warehouse is not available (offseason)
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#17
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
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.One notable exception is our 1999 National Championship robot which is mostly untouched in its niche in the shop. Two of our less reliable robots were dismantled the next year. |
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#18
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
We usually keep "older" robots in the basement that we work in. Not only do these robots give us inspiration, but they also give us parts when we run out! ![]() |
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#19
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I'm not as close to 522 as I used to be due to my work schedule but from their first robot to the current one are kept in a nice size room that way they can do some public relations tasks and get some excersize. The Girls; as they are still considered are well maintained and get their monthly maintenance. Well except their 2003 robot, she was canabalized so that the 2004 robot can have a somewhat similar mentality
I try to prevent the coaches from taking apart the girls only b/c each one has its story and if you take them apart no one will be around to tell the story. As for spare parts theres no such thing as "SPARE", however there are such things as a prototype & "TEMPORARY" parts ![]() Last edited by mtaman02 : 31-03-2006 at 14:09. |
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#20
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
Our school facility is housed in a technical wing of the high school, and some of our space used to be a "house" for electrical students to wire. The first floor is our tool storage area and the upper area is for more long term storage. Until last year, we had a "graveyard" of robots up in storage. We decided last year to dismantle most of them for parts and extra space, so basically we now have this year's and last year's robots complete, with two more stripped-down frames used as prototyping platforms/driver practice/hassle bots/programming/etc. We had thoughts of hanging the old robots from the ceiling or displaying them as some type of "museum" of history, but that concept never got past the idea stage. In the "old" days, you had to return your control system at the end of the year, and keeping machines wasn't as useful...now that you get to keep the controls every year, it seems more reasonable to keep machines functioning if you have the space.
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#21
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
We keep all of our robots, back at least as long as I've been on the team, which was 2000. I think we even have the '99 robot somewhere out at the shop but it isn't operational anymore. They usually stay in working condition since we tend to use them for demos and such. Some of them have parts added post-season too, to use them for testing the next year's game (like adding a tetra manipulator to the bar hanging robot to give drivers some practice until we could finish that year's bot).
We now store them in the classroom at school (it is a great thing to see 6 or 7 robots lining the back wall of a classroom, and knowing how every one of them did amazing in competition). Perhaps we'll have to move them in a couple of years since we won't be able to fit them all in there. I personally think disassembling a robot is a bad idea, because they have a lot of memories that go with them. Like I said, as a mentor who was once on the team, it is great to go back and see all the robots I helped with and remember the good times I had with them. Keep them somewhere, even if you have to put them in your own garage or something. Maybe one day we can have champion robots be in a hall of fame or something so they can be preserved for generations to come. That would be awesome! |
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#22
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
Eric (2005) and Stealth Hedgehog (2003) are at the back of the Electronics Lab, Conicio (just back from NYC) is... somewhere. Possibly the Green shed where we keep the FLL stuff, our crate and a load of other stuff, including the caretakers lawnmower...
Last edited by JVGazeley : 31-03-2006 at 18:18. |
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#23
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
Quote:
For teams that have robots from before 2004, how effective are the RC and OI on them for testing with the kind of things we do now? We have 3 sets of controls from those years sitting around that could be used to build a robot, but no remaining member (and maybe 1 mentor) has experience programming them, and I'm not quite sure if they'd be worth the hassle to learn so that we could use them. |
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#24
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
an unused bathroom, however sometimes the axel get rusty
limit of about 2 full size |
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#25
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
We keep a lot of old field elements, some driver stations we made, various robot parts, and some other things related to robotics in a shipping container next to our fuel cell, similar to:
![]() Some robots are stored in a little closet on the exterior of our school, and then we also have another closet behind our machine shop / computer lab / classroom where we keep the rest of the robots we still have, not all of which operate, but are still pretty assembled. I think we have pretty much all of them, though I'm sure some of the earlier ones are no longer there. The only robot to really see cannibalization was our 2004 robot, which remains our test robot for this year, and has been very modified in the last two years. These three areas are reffered to as super super secret store, super secret store, and secret storage. The school used to give us a whole abandoned classroom to keep things, but due to expansion, they just gave us the shipping container. |
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#26
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
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The Controllers are every bit as the same accept the added feature of the LEDs and of course software upgrades & Programming Language. That in reality is only thing that seperates the controllers from 1999 - 2003 and 2004 - Current. From 1999 - 2003 I think the programming language was PBasic And From 2004 to the Future the programming language is C++ which is alot more powerful and you can do alot more in the program (Autonomous and other extras) Personally with what we do now you probably will not be able to get done a whole lot. You can go ahead and build a robot but to practice programming it you would need a complete controller setup from 2004 onwards. Theres no point hooking something up that understands PBasic and then transfering it to a newer setup then only understands C++. I don't like to be negative but thats how it is - believe it or not these controllers take a beating and ceases to amaze me how they are still able to work. Heres a question: Of all the teams that have their robots in one piece, Does everything 100% work as if it were day 1 all over again or are some of the robots a big "rusty" - And do you still have a 100% complete OI Setup for each of the working robots? Last edited by mtaman02 : 31-03-2006 at 19:53. |
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#27
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
Quote:
I know that the chips were in PBasic, I wasn't sure how the storage space or the processor speed compared to the current ones since when I joined and started programming it was the first year they had the C robot controllers. From what I've heard programming would be a pain (I don't like not having else statements). It sounds like the old controllers would be okay for building something for remote control (a demo/test bot), but would be worthless in sensor prototyping or autonomous testing. One thing I'm worried about out here that most teams probably don't have to deal with for outside storage is the heat. Outside storage conatiners would get HOT in the summer here (as I'm sure you know we get air temperatures above 110 regularly), plus I don't think our school could find room for it on campus. Is cooled storage easy to find, or is heat something I probably don't need to worry about? Thank you everyone for all your replies. After this poll, I'm much more confident I'll be able to find more storage space somewhere. |
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#28
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
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#29
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
[quote=Donut]
One thing I'm worried about out here that most teams probably don't have to deal with for outside storage is the heat. Outside storage conatiners would get HOT in the summer here (as I'm sure you know we get air temperatures above 110 regularly), plus I don't think our school could find room for it on campus. Is cooled storage easy to find, or is heat something I probably don't need to worry about? [quote] See out here in NYC we have many different Storage Buildings that are in house and climate controlled the only problem is that I never actually been in one before so I don't know the height depth and width of a storage closet. The good thing about them is they are dirt cheap close 10 - 30 bucks monthly (well at least out over here they're dirt cheap). If you have like a storage Deluxe Building or another company out there you should be able to go look at the area before purchasing it and see if its big enough to house a couply of robots w/ their control decks or a small container with their controllers. The other Idea is take the robot home with you and leave it in your shed like I should if my old team thinks about dismantling the robots to save space in the very distant future =). Then again the robot during my time is about 1 1/2 - 2 ft off the ground and about the max length & width you can make a robot not to mention they'd be only able to gut the inside since the frame is welded top to bottom - front to back. Last edited by mtaman02 : 01-04-2006 at 07:04. |
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#30
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Re: Storage Space & Previous Robots
All our robots from 2001-2005 are witting around our shop in various stages of disrepar/repair/cannibalization. We also have two kitbots sitting around and a few parts from 2000 scattered here and there. 2001 is completely inoperable and almost completely cannibalized (it gave up between 2003 and 2004). 2002 is pretty much undrivable, but could still work otherwise. 2003 is dying slowly, but 2004 and 2005 are fully operable or close to it. The two kitbots have been stripped of their electronics, so they can't operate at all.
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