QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [08-26-01]

We have 2, one each from 2000 and 2001. I think 2000 was the first year we got to keep the control system. This was a major factor in our deciding to keep our robots functional.

Well most of the time. Right now 2001 is down because we're doing some mods and I think we need a new left hand screw for the drive in 2000. But both have all the pieces and have been used for several demos. 2001 even went to the Paris Airshow for a demo!

I think letting the teams keep the control systems was one of the best decisions FIRST has made. We really didn't have the technical capability to reverse engineer the old control systems so we usually just scavenged our old robots for parts esp. spare motors. Now since we can run more than one robot at a time we keep at least two running so one can be a practice machine.

We'll really need the practice machine this year as our driver should be graduating at the end of the year. It's kind of hard to replace 5 years of experience!