1 cubic inch Robot

[Nuttyman54]

Congrats! that's a very impressive accomplishment! Will the robots be on display in you pit at competitions?

[octothorpe]

Great job! I'm amazed that such a small robot could perform a challenge autonomously in so little time. The size of those robots is really incredible; I suppose it makes for a completely different kind of competition.

On a side note, it sounds as though the article got a few facts wrong (building robots up to 4 feet high? Surely one of those seven bots was taller than that). Not a surprise; my team has found out the media rarely reports with 100% accuracy, at least when it comes to FIRST.

[Lavapicker]

Aloha All,
Ha, as for the media accuracy....I've had quite a few quotes attributed to me in the paper that had nothing to do with what I said. Most times, however, they usually make me sound more intelligent than I am so I'm not complaining????
Thanks for the idea nuttyman54...yes, I think we'll bring them to the regionals to display in the pits. We plan on attending the Silicon Valley and Hawaii regionals this year if anyone there wants to see them in person. Although I have to tell you with all the tools and parts that lay around our pit area it would be really easy to lose them. In fact, we almost left them at home when we flew to Japan and we actually left the one cubic cm robot at the hotel on the day of the competition. One student had to catch the train back to the hotel and made it back with 5 minutes to spare before he had to compete. Its really easy to misplace these little guys when you're use to 130 pound robots. BTW, we transported all three one inch robots in a little glass jar about the size of peanut butter jar in our carry-ons. It still feels funny pulling robots out of a jar....

[Chief Pride]

is it the same robot in the first post as the article? doesnt look like it o.O

[Lavapicker]

you have a good eye...no its not the same one. We built three one cubic inch robots because we had three sub-teams of about 5-7 students each. Each one was slightly different and we were making changes on them all the way up to the night before competition in the Hotel...sound familiar??? We also had two one cubic centimeter robots which looked a lot alike since they consisted of the same two motors and weights.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Lavapicker

OK, we have a picture of our 1 cm3 robot now too. The nob on the front is actually a weight to help hold the shafts to the ground.

does the wire lead not count as part of the robots dimensions?

[Lavapicker]

The leads in the picture of the one cubic centimeter bot were removed and we ran just power wires directly to the two motors. Its a special wire called mogami wire (36 guage) with no memory - very limp. I have to say though that all the other teams were using this bare copper wire that was at least a 40 guage. I'm not sure where they got it but it looked like fine hair and we would have done much better with it.
For the one cubic inch robot, we also removed the leads and soldered the wires right to the board to make the one cubic inch rule. I expected to see a one-cubic inch box to fit in like the box we have at FIRST but when we arrived at the competition I was surprised to see that we were just on our honor. I thought there were a couple bots that actually exceeded the size limit by at least a half inch but I felt it would be too weird to pull out the ruler and cry that they're over by 5/16.

[Bcliff358]

1 cubic mile robot, try that.

[Sanjay_M]

Very impressive! Good luck in the competition over in Japan

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Sanjay_M

Very impressive! Good luck in the competition over in Japan

They don't need it.... they already competed and did amazing

[waiakea2024]

Thanks everyone! A one mile robot...now that sounds interesting. What would it do? Anihilate the world? Cool. Our team can go for the evil "rule the world" plot. ^.^

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Sean Schuff

So I'm intrigued by the photo and the whole notion of micro robots. I went to the site you listed for information on the competition. At the top of the home page it had a link to the construction manual for micro robot kit. Right on the first page of the manual was exactly what I was looking for. Right under the cutter knife and instant glue was the ever popular "insulting tape". And when it insults you, ir really sticks it to you!

See for yourselves at http://imd.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp/maze/m..._manual_en.pdf

My guess is something got a tad lost in translation.

Maybe they meant to say insulating tape? That's just one letter off from insulting tape.

[waiakea11]

The only problem with bringing the cubic inch and centimeter robot would be getting through security again (im surprised they didnt catch some of them the first time) and making sure that we dont lose them when we are there.....we should build a display case that is fairly large for our own finding purposes.....Another issue would be sneaking them under the radar of our mentor...he loves the little guys.

We literally packaged them all in tissue boxes and little jars stuffed with padding...