Use Velcro on your Control Board!!

[Eldarion]

I know the feeling--this happened to team 81 back in 2006 when I had built that fancy operator console with the laptop inside. A team came speeding along in autonomous and slammed the alliance wall, causing the 30+ pound console to go flying though the air, demolishing the OI and cracking the Lexan on the top of the console. Miracuously, the laptop's internals were still functional after a little repair work--HPs from the early 2000s are built like tanks!

[ericand]

Originally Posted by Coosty

Attention Teams,


We overlooked the necessity of keeping our control board firmly on the control station.

We did the common, "this thing weighs like 30 lbs no way it will go anywhere"

We could not have been more wrong. In a game where teams are trying to autonomously navigate around the field as fast as they can. You are going to run into some problems.

THE STORY:
So the match starts out with our control board in Station 1. So we are looking directly at the other teams robots lined up. Hybrid starts, a team comes out going as fast as they can and slam directly into the wall. This impact causes our 30 lb plus board to go flying in the air spinning. It landed on the joysticks and shattered the one that operates our manipulator. Not only almost hitting our drivers but nearly damaging the competition port on the OI. So half the match we drove around without use of our manipulator. While I looked for a team to lend us their joystick. A team that was in queue Graciously lent one to us. So halfway through the match we gain use of our arm and manipulator again. The team came and apologized but it was something that should have been prevented by us.


SO! Moral of the story is Teams PLEASE place Velcro on the bottom of your control boards. The Velcro located on the stations is the loop/soft end and is 6 inches away from the wall. So you will need to place the Rough end of Velcro on your control boards accordingly.


Corey
Team 288

The same thing happened to Team 1425 in their first match Friday at the Portland Regional.

[Arefin Bari]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I heard an announcement while I was in the pit at the New Jersey Regional which stated that the drivers are allowed to "catch" their operator controllers in the case of another robot knocking it down during hybrid mode. It does violate rule G47 but at the same time it makes more sense. It would be nice to have an update from FIRST about this matter.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I heard an announcement while I was in the pit at the New Jersey Regional which stated that the drivers are allowed to "catch" their operator controllers in the case of another robot knocking it down during hybrid mode. It does violate rule G47 but at the same time it makes more sense. It would be nice to have an update from FIRST about this matter.

It doesn't violate G47, it is allowed by the last sentence of G47.

TEAM Positions During HYBRID PERIOD – During the HYBRID PERIOD, the DRIVERS
and COACH must stand behind the PLAYERS LINE within their ALLIANCE ZONE. During
the HYBRID PERIOD, the ROBOCOACH must stay within one of the two designated
ROBOCOACH STATIONS (either local or remote). Each violation (stepping outside the
designated area, or stepping across the PLAYERS LINE) will result in a PENALTY.
Exceptions will be made in cases involving personal or OPERATOR CONSOLE safety.

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

It doesn't violate G47, it is allowed by the last sentence of G47.

haha... I shouldn't try to read CD regarding important things while I am half sleep. Thanks for clarifying Joe.

[Cow Bell Solo]

Originally Posted by Pikat

http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2...j_qf3m1BAD.wmv

you can see a team's OI falling to the ground after a crash in hybrid mode.

I think we might add some velcro to our OI

[petek]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I heard an announcement while I was in the pit at the New Jersey Regional which stated that the drivers are allowed to "catch" their operator controllers in the case of another robot knocking it down during hybrid mode.

The NJ Head Ref made a point of this at the Friday drivers meeting and had the announcement made in the pits several times on Friday and Saturday.
Since we still had controls hitting the floor is a testament to how attentive some drive teams are!


A word to the wise: velcro helps, but be ready to catch your controls even if you have yards of it. A heavy control panel undergoing impact acceleration and a 90 degree change in attitude probably has a whole lot of force going... (Anybody up for calculating the forces on a control panel making a 90 degree turn downward in say 250 ms?)

[Faith]

Our controller went flying once too. It never hit the ground, being held up by the competition port, but it was DEFINITELY a surprise. We had been warned ahead of time that if it was disoriented by the team coming at us, we could step forward and move it, but we weren't expecting it to actually come off the station. Nothing was damaged, luckily, but velcro was put on first thing after the match was done.

[Corey Oostveen]

Yes there is no penalty for saving the control board from hitting the ground.

Everything happened so fast that I did not even realize I stepped up across the line and put it back before hybrid was completely over. I cant believe that only one of our joy sticks broke. Here is the video of when Our control board fell you cant see it happen but the announcer says stuff about it, and you will see our manipulator not functioning until halfway through the match.

http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...p?matchid=4961

Corey

[daf]

Might be a stupid question... but what side of the velcro should be put on the bottom of the control board?

[daf]

Ummm..just kidding....just read the first post of the thread lol

[thefro526]

I know this is a bit late but, regardless of how much your control board weighs or the shape of it, put some Velcro on it. It will not hurt anything and just make sure you mount it securely enough to your control board. Also we have had our controls knocked off and knocked other peoples controls off and I will say this, screw the penalties if there is a robot speeding at your wall that looks like it may be out of control.

When we would go out for a match I usually held my hand out about 4" away from our control board if I saw a robot coming. I would ask the ref before doing this and as long as you don't touch the controls you should be fine. Also don't hesitate to save your control board. Control Board > 10 points.

[bigbeezy]

The exact same thing happened to us in a match at Florida. they slamed the wall and our controls feel to the ground shattering our arm joystick. due to the shattered joystick our tower got stuck in the up position and we had no way of lowering it... so we were stuck in one quadrant for the entire match unable to do anything.

by the way we did have Velcro on our control board when this happened.

Now we still use the Velcro, but we also clamp our controls to the table so hopefully this will not happen again. By a shear chance of luck one of our mentors that very morning had us grab a spare joystick from our shop so that we would have a spare. The funny thing is that we had laughed at the time...

[Golto]

We had this happen at the CT regional. I was in the remote Robocoach station, and our alliance partner came crashing into the wall, sending the controls of the station 3 team flying. They stoppe, and the other robots were coming...next thing we knew, there was a pileup.