pic: 2006 XO X-Cat

[Ellery]

Well Pakrat,

the drives are the same base we used last year, kit bot frame and 6 wheel drive with a couple of IFI traction wheels this year for added grip. This year I geared down big time for pushing power yet the AndyMark trannys allow me to get a 2 speed setup of at least 3.5 ft/sec to 9 ft/sec. It worked well at the Finger Lakes regional when we needed to play defense or make our way through a bunch of bots.

This Year's design is a very good Jack of all trades system, We can accurately score at the center goal from various spots on the field, Dump balls in side goals, climb ramp, and pplain ol' hold the fort down. We were pretty much only at 50% at the FLR since we still were working on our autonomous yet we were able to surprisingly perform well without any assistance of the CMUCam or an special s/w routines. So that just proved to me that we did our homework on the hardware side and are waiting for the miracles of S/W to complement the rest of the system. It was probably that demonstration at the FLR that won us the Motorola Quality Award since we really didn't work on the robot at all at the regional. We actually had time to help out teams more, which is a what we strive for while we were in the pits.

Like last years design we've surprised ourselves of our performance. We ended being ranked somewhere 13th in the world at the end of the 2005 season. We'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best next week.

Ellery