Coolest Robot Trick of 2001

[Dan 550]

For this years award of Coolest Robot Trick, which will be voted on begining on or around 11.27.2001, I nominate three bots. First off, I nominate MOE by Miracle Workerz 365, for its outstanding Always Balance the Bridge trick with those neat little arms. I also nominate Team 25 Raider Robotix for their bot's neat Leap Frog trick with the center field divider. Finally, Team 118's bot Condor needs mentioning here because of it's ability to literally do everything and then some; it can put two large balls on the goals, balance them on the bridge, and then scurry into the end zone for maximum point scoring. Each of these bots did an outstanding job to impress the crowd with their cool little things they did, and MOE scored many, many points with its trick, as shown by its win. I'll post a link to a pic as soon as possible for 25. Nominees, anyone?

Team 118 - Condor Bot

Miracle Workerz 365 - MOE

[Elgin Clock]

Can I nominate my own team?

I don't want to toot my own teams horn but.........oh yes I do! But, during our last off season mini comp, we managed to pick up the stretcher and push it between the wood beam and the railing down the center of the field, then we followed it over with our robot and pushed it into the endzone. The whole room lit up with applause from a newly discovered play. We got this idea because with our arm configuration that was originally used to push the ramp down, we could also use it as a forklift. The nly two drawbacks from the first time we did it was that we didn't lift the arms up enough when we got past the center divider and we ripped up the carpet. Oh yeah then there was the other snaffu,
as the weight of the stretcher, along with some other factors actually broke half the teeth off the one of the gears in the gear box. oops.

Anyways if I can not nominate my own team, I'd have to chose the Bobcat Robotics team (I think) This play was during the New England regionals. I think it was them who actually had a ball in their claws but could not get it on the goal while it was balanced. With little time remaining, they decided just to get the points by going in to the endzone. But, because of the weight of the ball at the end of thier extended claw they backed into the endzone on two wheels and the claw and ball in the air, and when they hit the endzone they imediatly hit the stop button and the robot swung around and the final position of the robot was that the robot was on two wheels, the arm was fully extended, and the ball was outside the field on the claw, over the bar holding the robot up. So in the end of the match the only things touching the ground was the two wheels in the endzone and the ball outside the playing field zone. But they got thier endzone points cause the robot was not touching the field outside of the endzone.

Hmmm... Me thinks a picture would have described both of these plays alot better!!! I'll try to find some.

[Dan 550]

Everyone can feel free to nominate their own bot's fancy trick, but I'd like to elaborate on the definition of this trick; I'm going to limit the poll to stuff that the robots were designed to do, and do repeatedly without robot harm. MOE, Condor, and Raider were designed to do their snazzy tricks as their way of competing. I'd like to keep the nominations for this poll to stuff that's supposed to happen, that's all. For nomination for Coolest Robot Play 2001, post under that heading.

[E. The Kidd]

I'd like to nominate team 71 for kicking everyone's #%# in the finals at the nationals (710 points a match). They were able to put the big ball on top while they prepared balanced the bridge by themselves. To cap it off they pulled into the end zone to get 4 robots in the end zone a balanced bridge with 2 goals (one full of black balls)and 2 big balls

I'd also like to nominate Chief Delphi for the simple fact that they could perform every function (not to mention they were on our alliance that won the NYC regional last year)

[Clark Gilbert]

I'de like to nominate my team 45-TechnoKats for the always balance autobalance......the thing never failed us as long as the bridge wasnt off the center beam...

[Bill Gold]

Ok. I'll nominate my team's robot for placing a large ball in the upper deck of the LA Memorial Sports Arena at the Los Angeles Regional. We got lots of applause for that one .



In this picture our arms weren't completely extended.

[David Kelly]

clark, i was going to nominate you but couldn't get to a computer fast enough. i don't think i ever saw a match where the Techno-Kart didn't balance. You guys were awesome!!

[Christina]

I also want to nominate team 45 for their balancing abilities. That robot could've balanced on a dime!

~Christina

[Clark Gilbert]

(final nomination)

I'de like to nominate 234 for there snazzy arm control device thing (as seen below)....It was controlled by the operators arm and that was just awesome.....

It was a "trick" especially if you werent looking cuz u couldn't tell who was controlling the arm...

[Tom Schindler]

Bobcats had one semi-unique move - ability to place a ball on the far balanced goal on the bridge.... not sure if this is worht a nomination, but i figured why not post it...

[gniticxe]

Thanks for the nomination Dan! Our team nicknamed the little arms "wings," and as one of the students who worked on them, I kinda feel obligated to say something about them. First of all, their success rate was not quite 100%. There were a few times when we didn't have the right weights from the goals, so the CG wasn't quite centered. And then there was the time when in the excitement of a high scoring round at Drexel (?) we killed with the wings exteneded and lost the 4x multiplier because we were touching the playing field...D'oh! But overall, they did a very nice job.
Anyway, the design was really simple: it was just the globe motor mounted to a rack and pinion system. When the pinion mounted to the globe spun, the 2 racks (the wings themselves, one above, one below) extended out of the robot just offset from the robot's CG. The idea was to catch the bars extending from the bridge and eventually come to a complete rotational stop when we hit the playing field divider. To be sure the force on the wings didn't simply bend them (we had to go at the bridge with full speed), we made the wings quite 'beefy.' Thats about it, and thanks again.

[Dan 550]

That was just sad when you guys lost that 4x multiplier, I almost ran to my pit to mourn, but I had to do that anyway, because some driver broke my team's bot, again, and I had to save the day. At that point, we were in 44th, only ahead of the all-girl team in the red shirts, so we let anybody drive it.

Speaking about Drexel, does anybody know what # the team from Florida "Think Pink!" is? I'd like to add them to the autobalance catagory.

[Joe Ross]

233 is the pink team: 233 NASA Kennedy Space Center & Rockledge High School & Cocoa Beach High School Rockledge/Cocoa Beach, FL USA

[A. Leese]

Originally posted by Joe Ross
233 is the pink team: 233 NASA Kennedy Space Center & Rockledge High School & Cocoa Beach High School Rockledge/Cocoa Beach, FL USA

oh..rockledge is on that team? no wonder when I mentioned SPAM (talking to someone from my school while amongst people from their school) during the third quarter of a football game against them one of the people said "Go SPAM Robotics!" randomly..sorry..random comment..

[Kit Gerhart]

If you want to get down to reality, the coolest robot trick, performed most reliably by team 71, was the ability to push both goals on the bridge and then drive to the end zone. Team 308 and a few others could do it, but not as consistantly as 71.

Our team underestimated what it would take to win. We had a machine which could autobalance very reliably with both goals. We could qualify well, but our giving up the "end zone" points prevented us from getting the 700+ points needed to win competitions without partners like 71 or 308.