2010 Lesson Learned: The Negative

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Can Someone Figure Out How To Make The Field Gates Stay On? It seemed that a robot knocked at least one field gate off in every other match. It's dangerous for a volunteer to reach into the field to retrieve the gate cover and lift the gate, and at the same time the gates and gate covers can cause serious damage to a robot.

That has to be the biggest issue I have seen in FIRST for years. It's just not acceptable anymore. The issue coming from the Curie field is that the little metal loops that go around the pole were bent. This caused the lexan to extend into the field more then usual. I went around on day 2 and placed pieces of tape to the top of the bar. That solved a lot of the problems of a robot just skimming the gate and having it glide down the rail. I thought about having a channel for the lexan to sit in. SO that gets rid of the loops that get bent easily and does not allow the lexan to slide down the rails.