Lost Trailers

[cainanator]

We were watching the matches on the web and noticed more than several cases where the trailers came unhitched from the robots. Can anyone tell me why this was happening? More importantly, how to stop it?

[Danny McC]

Hmmmm I noticed this as well. But I would also like to know why when this happened teams were still allowed to run for a short period of time? Are they not supposed to be stopped immediately? This happened to us and I was just wondering what everyone thought.

[gorrilla]

I saw this,

The pins' spring must be getting pushed in somehow....

I never would have figured they could come out, though(being hitch pins)

[big1boom]

Lost trailers at Midwest were from people not fully securing the set pin. It has a little spring clip that keeps the pin in, if that is not set, the trailer is prone to falling off.

[aksimhal]

I don't recall trailers being un hitched at DC; though again, the field crew was amazing and helpful there (though I'm sure all the field crews are awesome)

[XXShadowXX]

In one of our matches in GT (Greater Traverse City District), we literally drove away from our trailer in autonomous...

The match wasn't stopped, and the trailer was filled until it literally couldn't hold anymore balls, it was bad, really bad.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by aksimhal

I don't recall trailers being un hitched at DC; though again, the field crew was amazing and helpful there (though I'm sure all the field crews are awesome)

I saw it happen once, but I'm only aware of it happening on that one instance the entire regional.

[thefro526]

In one of our matches yesterday the trailer came off of a robot right after autonomous mode. It should've been disabled as soon as possible but, the ref assigned to that team was uncomfortable doing it himself so the head ref had to intervene.

Some of the pins and pin holders took a beating throughout the competition. Before our second semi-final match I had to wait at least 2 minutes for them to find us a usable hitch pin.

[Brdn666]

We lost it once because of our fault. It's not that bad.

[elvis9110]

at mwr this happened a few times where they didnt get disabled. i dont know why the refs didnt immediatley disable them but at the end of the match the trailers were spilling balls out the top. not a good thing for the alliance that it happens to.

[Cory]

If the trailer falls off the robot, that should be a field fault, and the match should be replayed.

I really don't understand why the poor team that has this happen to them would get disabled. Then the alliance is penalized twice for the field breaking?

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Cory

If the trailer falls off the robot, that should be a field fault, and the match should be replayed.

I really don't understand why the poor team that has this happen to them would get disabled. Then the alliance is penalized twice for the field breaking?

If the team connects the trailer to their robot (which generally is the case), it's not the fields' fault (if it wasn't properly secured). If the force of a collision happens to cause a properly installed pin to come dislodged, that's just bad luck. Independent of how the trailer is lost, <G35> requires the robot to be disabled.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Cory

If the trailer falls off the robot, that should be a field fault, and the match should be replayed.

I really don't understand why the poor team that has this happen to them would get disabled. Then the alliance is penalized twice for the field breaking?

If it is because the pin or trailer tongue broke, then I would agree. If it was because the team improperly installed the pin, then that is their own fault.

I grew up on a farm, and we never "trusted" these types of pins having them "jump" out on occasion. I never lost a hitch pin though that had a secondary cotter pin properly installed. Small bumps while undertension can put a surprizing amount of vertical force into a hitch-pin.

[Cory]

If a team installs the pin with the clip over the end of the pin, and it manages to come out, how is that their fault?

Are volunteers/refs/the FTA checking the pin prior to the match starting? Maybe they should be, and that would eliminate the problem. If they were to check, and ok it and the trailer subsequently fell off, then it's a field problem, not a team problem

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Cory

If the trailer falls off the robot, that should be a field fault, and the match should be replayed.

I really don't understand why the poor team that has this happen to them would get disabled. Then the alliance is penalized twice for the field breaking?

We lost our trailer twice (once in practice, once during an actual match). Both times we had the pin secured correctly, as both myself and the operator checked it. We made the field crew aware that we had lost it twice (we were the only team to have such a problem), and they checked it for every match afterwards. We brought a pair of pliers to apply a little extra pressure up. Looking at our trailer hitch, it appears that the spring clip was getting pinched between the trailer hitch and the trailer tongue. The spring steel clip had worked it's way into our trailer hitch at least 1/8". And yes, we did pass inspection, and the trailer's bumper contacted our bumper long before the trailer tongue touched the bumper. As far as we could tell, the high speed collisions were compressing our bumpers significantly which in turn pinched the pin. We cut off our back corners, but our robot was still as wide as longbots who had no trailer troubles. Perhaps it has something to do with open center pool noodles vs. solid pool noodles?