Day 1 Week 1

[MrForbes]

Thanks for the info! We are used to a sagging overpass, since I made our test one out of too small of pipe....I guess our pool noodle ball knocker offer idea wasn't so flakey after all. And we have our IR receiver mounted low on the robot, but it might need some shielding.

[Branden Ghena]

What kind of shielding could you use for an IR sensor? Would plastic stop signals, or would you have to use sheet metal?

[MrForbes]

Do you have a TV? and a remote control? do some experiments!

(and let us know what you find)

[gurellia53]

Originally Posted by tawnos23

What kind of shielding could you use for an IR sensor? Would plastic stop signals, or would you have to use sheet metal?

I don't have an answer to your question, but if you want to test a material to see if IR light passes through it, take a newer video camera with nightshot and look at your remote while sending signals. Put a material you want to test between the camera and the remote annd then see if you can still see the pulses.

[Simon Strauss]

Originally Posted by gurellia53

I don't have an answer to your question, but if you want to test a material to see if IR light passes through it, take a newer video camera with nightshot and look at your remote while sending signals. Put a material you want to test between the camera and the remote annd then see if you can still see the pulses.

Another option is if you have a camera phone or really cheap digital camera you will be able to see IR pulses through it.

[lasereyes]

Before we shipped our robot, we added a layer of Lexan on the robot. It was also in front of the IR board. It worked fine, so I don't think Lexan affects an IR signal that much.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by lasereyes

Before we shipped our robot, we added a layer of Lexan on the robot. It was also in front of the IR board. It worked fine, so I don't think Lexan affects an IR signal that much.

I agree. We made a lexan case for our IR receiver and no problems receiving signal.

[Betty_Krocker]

ok now i am worried. i am a week two regional, and have some concerns. first off he have fiberglass grippers that go around the outside of the ball and i am concerned about them snapping off since people say that there is a lot of arm to arm contact. also during testing at home, we forgot to pick the wheels up off the ground when loading the program, and it shot forward (while still tethered) and we ended up herding a table! has anybody broken their arms yet...
like i said we are using fiberglass grippers that i molded, which are only 2 or 3 layers thick, with a plywood rib on the back...
does anybody think there will be a problem?

[sgreco]

Three things I noticed about game play that I didn't expect:
1. There is a lot more defense then I had anticipated, needless to say it doesn't even compare to last year.
2. All good alliances need a good shooter.(if you don't have to stop to hurdle you have a big advantage over everyone that needs to stop)
3. Hybrid mode is very important because I have seen a lot of struggling just to pass two lines. The teams that I have seen that pass 3 or more lines in hybrid consistently seem to be very successful.

[waialua359]

In sports people want excitement and want to see lots of scoring.
I think that's what made it so exciting to watch the dominating robots in 2006. This game is much different.
After watching video footage today, it looked like someone played a VCR tape and kept it on slow motion (with the exception of speedy bots)
As predicted, grabbing/grasping the ball is tough and doing it with great efficiency is just as important as scoring efficiently, if your a hurdler.
Easy for me to watch it on video,.....must be something else for the student controllers trying to play the game.