Bridge problems?

[archiver]

Posted by Elliot Johnson at 04/09/2001 11:25 PM EST


Student on team #218, HP Robotics Team, from Highland Park High School and Double-E Inc..



I had a great time at Nationals this year. As a senior in High School, I hope I can continue to participate through college. I've been on my school's team since freshmen year, both my first year in high school and my team's first year in FIRST. This program is, without a doubt, the most unique, inspirational, and exciting things offered to students. I hope all the teachers, parents, engineers, and voluntieers know how thankful every FIRST student is for what they do, and know how much this program affects the students' lives.

And a quick question about that bridge. My team couldn't make it to a regional so this was our first time to play on the competition field. We built a practive bridge that we practiced on quite a bit without trouble. However, at the Nationals competition, we kept running into a big problem (this was on the galileo field). When robots would go over the bridge, the force from the bridge falling would cause it to bounce up. The angle iron on the raised sidef would land on top of the wood beam rather than on the side so the whole bridge was resting on the angle instead of directly on the beam. This made the bridge incredibly hard to work with and nearly impossible to balance. Did this happen often at the regionals or on other fields at Nationals? and how did teams work around this or prevent it from happening?

-elliot