Damaging the Field

[blaskay16]

On the Curie field we got a warning niot for pinning the robot (which i admit i was doing) but for burning up the carpet while i was pinning them. the carpet could be a better quality but all in all the Curie field held up extremely well

[Tytus Gerrish]

there are always holes in the carpet near the 1 point goals. at palmetto i was out there with the gaff tape after almost every match taping up a hole. those polycarbonate sides of the ramp tend to snap right off as well. it may not be considered damage but the panel that goes over the gates comes off often i saw robots knocking those things off constantly. by far the worst damage this year was the balls. they loose the color get kinda fuzzy and end up missing chunks.

[Qbranch]

At Cleavland, a rookie team's defensive robot did some serious lexan damage to the field. Can't remember the team number, sorry.

But anyhow, their robot was kind of like a little 5" tall bulldozer with a steel diamond plate blade. Their blade caught the edge of one of the lexan panels making up the fence running the length of the field. They had a four cim total drive system and some awesome tires, so... they got about half way down the field, chunking off every lexan panel as they went . I was standing about 10' from the field when it happened.

All in all though, the field has been extremely durable this year, except, of course, the automatic scoring system.

-Q

[dpraedan]

We were banging on the player station lexan before our first semifinal match on Galileo and knocked a wire above our team number sign into a bad position. Blair gave us a hard time, so the next time, we all just gently tapped our fingers on the lexan.

[TF8]

As much as most of you wont believe it, most likely to save on cost, most if not all of the driverstation glass is actually acrylic and not polycarbonate (GE Lexan). I was amaized at this myself but it does explain the cracking over the last few years.

[Sterling]

The lesser material for the clear sides of the ramp would explain how our robot (1379) broke it off after colliding with another robot. We were trying to get a better scoring position, but the collision and poor visibility coupled with an excited driver sent the robot careening across the far end of the field . This occured at the Peachtree Regional.

[pakrat]

All the balls being the same was, I heard, in order to garauntee similar poofiness/firmness of balls. I know 469 was talking about it thursday night becasuse when they loaded the robot, they had to switch where they pu balls initially because of difference in hardness on the balls...

[mtaman02]

When the field was shipped to NY and put together, the field assemblers came across one of those lexan porders that go on the sides of the main ramp and it was well cut one foot in by the entire height, needless to say we had a new piece shipped express from FIRST to NY within a day and was replaced at the end of practice, however with as much tape as we put on it, it stood up real well to thursdays practice, i wish I could say the same for the carpet, the carpet had its battle scars but nothing we couldn't tape and give it away at the end of the competition =-). hey with a water competition next year who needs carpet just get a marble slab =-) nice and slick. ;-)