Lost Trailers

[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?