pic: Physics lesson from BlueLightning 578

[Yan Wang]

you spend about 16 minutes on the playfield in action, and over 24 hours in the Pits - thats where the REAL action is. Team 578 made significant improvements to their bot at Canada, including moving the battery to the bottom side of the frame. It took a group of students all day thur and fri to make the change - we never tipped over after the move.

I agree with your team that the action goes on in the pits... we spent friday also making that long red frame in the picture and also moving our orientors and taking out several pneumatics and more. We learned in Chesapeake that we needed to protect stacks.

However, after that day, we just sat around and did a 10 min system check before each match cause the robot never got damaged.

Team 639 is about to get a physics lesson from BlueLightning, team 578, in conservation of momentum and center of gravity!. 578 beat them to the wall at Auton mode T=3.9 S, and is bringing 3 columns with them.

As for that picture, I don't understand what the physics lesson was. That frame is 4.8lbs and those orientors (now bin holders) are < .5 lb total. The CG is still about 9" or so off the ground. What happened in that match was that a bin falling hit the top of our robot and it did a wheelie; it did not tip.

What also happened was us winning that 1st quarterfinal match for our two alliances... and also winning the quarterfinal.

So I guess what we learned was; though you got to the top first and knocked down three... we got the other three and could still win.

What's interesting about the quarterfinals was the second match of it, where we put 783 and 314 out to do some pushing.

I know many of you have waited for this vid.

314 slowly goes up the ramp and gets flipped in autonomous. Everyone in the alliance is screaming cause we think we lost. 783 later pushes 314 up the ramp on top of the HDPE. An opponent pushes them off and in a miraulous moment, 314 flips back upright and goes to the top allowing our alliance to move on.

The vids I took are of Dana/Nick driving. The match where the pic was taken is our Quarterfinals Match 1 The amazing vid of 314 flipping and getting flipped back (great job 783) is Quarterfinals Match 2.

All of them are here:
Team 639 Code Red Robotics
Canadian Regional Movies
http://www.orbitreview.com/~temp/639movies/

Note that I took the first 4 accidently at the lowest res on my photo camera and the other 6 are at 320x240. My digital camera doesn't have sound... however, I doubt you'd want the screaming.