pic: When Robots Attack

[Brant Bowen]

loading photo ...

[Mike Nawrot]

You know, I'd be laughing a lot more had we not experienced three misfired autonomous matches while our drivers were still on the field. It's still very funny, but after watching one of our possible drivers for next year play frogger with six robots at PARC, I'm never sure if these types of pictures are staged or not.

[HellStorm303]

That mishap at PARC was really bizzare from the Red Alliance drivers station looking at the few lingering MORT guys and a few other guys from the blue alliance scrambling for their lives. Best hussle ive ever seen at a FIRST Off Season for sure

[Qbranch]

hmm lets see that will cost you.... 4 safety tokens.

-q

[Ryan Dognaux]

Just so people know - the bot wasn't on, this is just a staged picture. We always find some way to make the current year's robot attack Brant

[Uberbots]

That is how i threaten my teammates when they are being naughty
"The next autonomous is going to be 5 automatic shots stright at your face if you dont cut that out!"

[RyanN]

Our robot, Lamont-A-Bot had a transistor on its left drive Victor explode, causing our robot to go out of control. Unplugging the controller or swithing the diable switch on did nothing, and the fuse didn't blow, since there was no short circuit. So we had a 120 lb robot moving toward a bunch of our summer campers at our robotics camp, and I saved the day by picking up one side with one arm, and switching it off with the other, hence my little quote at the bottom. I don't know what would cause the victor to go bad following just switching the robot on. Last year we had a victor do the same thing, but it didn't cause it to go out of control, however, it would not go in reverse. In the end, it was pretty funny. Has anybody else had trouble with this before?

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by RyanN

Has anybody else had trouble with this before?

Wow...no. We did burn out one Victor this year, but that was only due to metal shavings. If it happens again, you might want to e-mail IFI about it--hang onto the corpse of a Victor that's left just in case they want to see it. I hope we never run into this problem. It seems like you would only have problems with components exploding if the Victors aren't kept cool, but that's just my guess.

JBot

[RyanN]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Wow...no. We did burn out one Victor this year, but that was only due to metal shavings. If it happens again, you might want to e-mail IFI about it--hang onto the corpse of a Victor that's left just in case they want to see it. I hope we never run into this problem. It seems like you would only have problems with components exploding if the Victors aren't kept cool, but that's just my guess.

JBot

I'm pretty sure it wasn't from overheating. We had just turned the robot on, and then we heard a pop. Next, it started running toward all the little kids. We also had a Victor from 2005 break, but I think that was from overheating, although we had 4 motors driving, and only one Victor broke.

[hoorayforpink]

robots attack....it happens u just got to learn how to live with it

[Alexa Stott]

Glad it was staged. I've heard stories about the robot having some "autonomous movement" and flying across the room while the laptop was still connected.

[techtiger1]

Well, this year I didn't have too much bad luck with robots attacking . In 2005 however, lets see I started off that year by having a tetra flung at me by 179 Swampthing at there scrimmage. Then at nationals the Pink robot drove over my foot while on the practice field and team 71'S robot the Beast almost fell on top of me while testing autonomous mode.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by hoorayforpink

robots attack....it happens u just got to learn how to live with it

yes robot attacks are a fact of life, and when they grab you with those metal claws you cant break free

but now there is something you CAN do about it. Everyone on your team should have robot insurance from Old Glory:

http://www.jengajam.com/r/Old-Glory-Insurance

[hoorayforpink]

finally affordable robot attack insurrance

[RbtGal1351]

Originally Posted by RyanN

Our robot, Lamont-A-Bot had a transistor on its left drive Victor explode, causing our robot to go out of control. Unplugging the controller or swithing the diable switch on did nothing, and the fuse didn't blow, since there was no short circuit. So we had a 120 lb robot moving toward a bunch of our summer campers at our robotics camp, and I saved the day by picking up one side with one arm, and switching it off with the other, hence my little quote at the bottom. I don't know what would cause the victor to go bad following just switching the robot on. Last year we had a victor do the same thing, but it didn't cause it to go out of control, however, it would not go in reverse. In the end, it was pretty funny. Has anybody else had trouble with this before?

Yeah, kind of similar.
In 2005 (at 11:00pm before ship) we wired a Victor backwards (switched red and black on the input, I think) and as soon as the robot was turned on, the motor went shooting forwards. It did let out the magic smoke, but I think that's because the motor was on our arm with a hefty mechanical hard stop.