Most Unfortunate Incidents

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Qbranch

2005:

At BMR, our robot had a potentiometer that controlled the outer link of the arm's position... in classic titanic-style arrogance, we didn't put any limit switches on the robot. When the pot became uncoupled, he mighty 1000+:1 reduction provided by two FP motors mounted to two AM planetaries mounted to a Kitbot transmission mounted to a second Kitbot transmission THEN to a 2:1 chain reduction... subsequently bent the four pieces of 1x1 extruded aluminum that made up the frame to a 20 degree angle before somebody remembered the disable button.

2006:

Rear right drive sprocket cracked in the eliminations. We subsequently lost Buckeye.

But I guess we made good on it this year. The way I figure, we've won zero regionals my sophomore/junior years (my first two years) and we've won three this year. So, I figure that's one regional per year.

-q

At the cost of a burned sensor this year...

I think the worst one any of my teams has had was when 330 (2004), not fell off the bar onto the floor (which it did), but ran the lift with the lock engaged the next match. Some cleanup needed to be made afterwards--lift channels bent, and I think a cable or two broke.

[Rick TYler]

Semifinals of Washington FTC regional. Exothermic teams 575 and 417 are teamed with a third robot in the semifinals. 575 and 417 won easily in the first match. In the second match, 575 and the third 'bot lost a very close match. We now come up to the third and final match, with Plan B and Captain Hook once again paired up to take on the same robots as in match 1. The winner of this match goes to the finals.

Due to a field error, the teams wait until the last possible moment to turn on their computers, because some robots (especially our 418 for some reason) have had their computers time out before the end of a match. In the excitement, the drive team from 417 forgets to turn their robot on, and as the announcer says "begin" the teams turn on their remotes, starting their robots (remember that the field software is down, so all day the matches are started by the drivers). The coach for 417 looks down and sees no lights and then bends over an flips the "on" switch. The referees rule that touching the robot is a violation of the rule against touching a field object during a match and disqualify them. They are out. When the match is restarted, 575 has to play one-on-two and loses.

In an incredibly gracious discussion later, a mentor for one of the teams on the other alliance said that all three other drivers should have touched their robots -- causing the referees to face the possibility of DQing all four robots. Didn't happen, though, so the #1 alliance did not go into the finals. Bitterly disappointing, especially as it was our only regional: the Oregon regional gives preference to Oregon teams and wouldn't accept our registration, and we missed the Vancouver, BC, event due to mentor failure.