pic: Team 980: Lightning strikes!

[ay2b]

Originally Posted by EricH

Classic Thunderbot machine!

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail... No, wait, that's not right. I mean: we looked at several different designs, and prototyped two of them -- an arm and a launcher. In the end, we decided to go with our strengths, and use a design we've proven works and that we can build. 980 has been mentoring 2404 this year, and 2404 decided to go with the launcher design, so in the end we got to build both.

Originally Posted by EricH

Is the arm turreted?

No, we didn't feel there was a need for a turreted arm this year. In the past, we've had as many as four degrees of motion on an arm, but that gets completed to control (both from a software and from a player's perspective).

Originally Posted by EricH

See you in L.A.!

We're looking forward to it! We'll be competing in San Diego and in LA. If things go well enough, we'll also be in Atlanta.