No time to 'play' between regionals!!

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Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 11/3/99 8:26 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: No time to 'play' between regionals!! posted by Susanne Krussell on 11/3/99 7:28 PM MST:



I believe that the wording was 'more than one event' not 'more than one REGIONAL'

Wait a minute, what are computers good for if I can't cut and paste the relevant text?

> ....ANY team that is participating in more than one
> event this year, will NOT have the additional 3 days to work on their robot
> as you have had in the past. This year, all teams participating in more
> than one event, will ship their robot on Saturday right from the event to
> the next drayage facility….

I think this means that basically all robots will be shipped from directly from the Regional to the next event, whether this is the Nationals or another regional.

I have some serious questions about this.

Do you have to use 'official' shippers provided or can you ship via whatever means you like?

What about tools? Do they have to ship with the robot?

What about spare parts?

What if your robot breaks (very seriously breaks) in the finals of the regional? You have NO time to fix it? This is fair? I think that it happens quite often that a robot breaks badly in the finals (especially if the game is a king of the hill competition).

Can you bring spare parts to the next event to 'repair' your robot? Some robots simply don't work until they get 'repaired' after a regional and then shipped on the following Tuesday.

Doesn't this give teams with the courage and money to build two robots a HUGE advantage? I know we drove until our wheels fell off or all our batteries were dead on the Monday and Tuesday after a regional.

If Spare Parts are allowed to be made and swapped out at the next event, then this rule really favors teams that have good prints of all their designs. Modular designs with interchangeable parts are going to win the war in the trenches.

I'll say this much, It sure changes things.

Joe J.