What is the most ghetto thing you've seen on a robot?

[JohnSmooth42]

We had to fix our intakes at an off season event one year and we discovered a shaft key had come out. While looking for said shaft key we found a rivet on the floor. I don't think I need to elaborate on this any more...

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by JohnSmooth42

We had to fix our intakes at an off season event one year and we discovered a shaft key had come out. While looking for said shaft key we found a rivet on the floor. I don't think I need to elaborate on this any more...

In the same vain, HSS drill bits make crappy yet expedient dowel pins. Drill the hole and, while still running the drill, angle it to the side with a sharp jerking motion. Instint pinned connection. Back it up with a drop of CA glue if you're the nervous nelly type.

[hwu24110]

I was not able to witness the performance of the robot, but I remember in 2014 Aerial Assist, I looked down the end of the convention center and I saw a robot that featured a folding chair (with arm rests) as the catching mechanism.

[Alex2614]

Okay, okay, can we move past whether or not you think the title of the thread is offensive? We get it. You've all made your point. Now let's focus on the actual INTENT behind the words and what the thread was intended to be about?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by hwu24110

I was not able to witness the performance of the robot, but I remember in 2014 Aerial Assist, I looked down the end of the convention center and I saw a robot that featured a folding chair (with arm rests) as the catching mechanism.

Had one of those at L.A., too.

This year, I've seen a robot that held its intake in starting configuration with... wait for it...

...Painter's tape. Yep, folks, painter's tape, 1" wide and stretched long. I knew they needed a new piece when they were trying to find a spot to stick the two pieces they made every time they went out for a match together...

[araniaraniratul]

Originally Posted by hwu24110

I was not able to witness the performance of the robot, but I remember in 2014 Aerial Assist, I looked down the end of the convention center and I saw a robot that featured a folding chair (with arm rests) as the catching mechanism.

So it was the same robot in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In 2014, we (294) stuck a lawn chair on 687 because they had an awesome drivetrain but their other mechanisms were struggling. It helped them consistently get that first assist. They eventually grew out of the chair by the time eliminations in LV came around. I love bugging one of my co-mentors (687) about it though!

[BeardyMentor]

The following story is not the most kludgey thing we have ever done, but it is one of the most successful kludges we have ever pulled off.

This year at Mount Olive, we took the robot out of the bag and noticed the intake arm was spinning loose on the shaft. We looked a little closer and somewhere between final testing and bagging the robot, the 3/16" key had fallen out of the sprocket. After looking through everything we brought we discovered that the spare key stock had not been packed. After calming down, we cut the heads off of some #10 bolts and shoved them into the empty keyways and re-tightened the retaining set screws with loctite and they held for the entire event.

[C.Lesco]

Originally Posted by Andy A.

In the same vain, HSS drill bits make crappy yet expedient dowel pins. Drill the hole and, while still running the drill, angle it to the side with a sharp jerking motion. Instint pinned connection. Back it up with a drop of CA glue if you're the nervous nelly type.

Oh my god im so happy to hear that we werent the only ones doing this. Sketchiest thing, losing bolts on battery box, fixing battery box to frame using zipties which all broke at the end of every match.

All fixed for worlds though

[GeeTwo]

Sometimes people are just offended too easily. Sometimes offensively so.

For the record, in our neck of the woods we sometimes refer to this as "cajun engineering", in jest but not intended as an offense. Also for the record, the guy whose hands are in the picture that I posted as a "cajun compass" is not in fact a cajun, but I am at least 3/8 cajun myself, and I did not intend to be mean to either the man wielding the crawfish tray as a circle guide or to my own relatives. Nor do I believe any of them took it that way.

Chill!

[Maxwellfire]

Originally Posted by nedwards28

2014 rookie year in aerial assist. Robot won't stay in correct configuration at match start. We used zip ties to hold the arm up and then used the autonomous to jerk the robot to a stop hard enough to break said zip ties. We also didn't have enough pneumatic guts to get the ball over the truss without a solid running start.

2015 recycle rush. Needed to spring load some clips that we're supposed to pick up totes by the handles during our second district competition. The only thing we had were hair ties from the girls on the team. Our running joke is that hair ties got us to Worlds.

Hair ties of various types are a continual sight on our robots: 2014 to retract the shooter after firing, 2015 to hold our sponsor panels on, and 2016 tbd

[hardcopi]

I had no idea Hartford did this for their 2nd event. This was their first year and they had some HUGE setbacks. Their main mentor was in a car accident and out for the season. We helped them to get their robot built and programmed. During St Joe, if my memory isn't failing which it always does, Enginerds, Rush, Robotarians and Joes helped them to build a catcher throughout the day. We ended up picking them for our 3rd pick.

Did I mention they had like 4 kids on their team? The girls on the team got to cheering for them because their ENTIRE team was on the field.

Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72jV0C6NqkA

Now that post brought back some good memories. (BTW, we rearranged our numbers to make 5246, but we didn't have a 4 so we used a roughly 4 shaped giant head of our head mentor.

[sir tyson]

On this year's robot, our lift system consists of a tape measure connected to a motor with a hook duct taped to the end of it. The hook is attached to a "winch" (a hex shaft fitted through a socket wrench that's zip tied to the frame) with paracord.

[PeeDiddy]

We took the entire gearbox and motor assembly out of a drill and hotwired the motor controller to the arm of our robot to put it back in starting configuration post match every match.

[KevinG]

As a robot inspector I would immediately commend you guys for using a ratchet in such an innovative manner. I love jury-rigged stuff. In a competition full of beautiful robots made with CAD/CAM and precisely machined components I always enjoy seeing students who pull off an innovative solution using unconventional materials.

[Nirnaeth]

As an urban educator, I commend the rational discussion in this thread regarding the language in the OP's title. I think we've arrived at a mature and reasonable conclusion.

That said, I also think that youngsters who are inculcated within a specific cultural context are not yet experienced enough to truly empathize with those in other contexts. This is not their fault, but rather just a lack of life experience. So, I want to provide some more information:

At our district regional this past weekend, the first thing my students-of-color said to me as we walked into the pit area was: "I don't see anyone else that looks like me."

How racism and classism operates is less and less on a personal level these days (which is good!), but more and more on an ontological and systemic level (which is pernicious!). Just go to Google Images right now and type in the word "engineer", and describe the top pictures that pop up. In fact, I'm gonna do that now! Here is what pops up for me:

http://i.imgur.com/pWbqtof.jpg

As you can see, beyond the lack of racial diversity in this representation, there's also a lack of gender diversity. This is emblematic of the normalization of certain representations of students of color. This normalization, which some scholars refer to as anti-blackness, is the ontological construction through media and narrative of what it means to be an urban youth. In essence, when we think about an "urban youth", whatever that may mean, the first images that pop into mind is not an engineer in a shirt-and-tie wearing a hard-hat.

And it's not just people who are privileged that carry those thoughts! Some of my students do as well! That's how pervasive anti-blackness is within our culture. I was judging a debate round once, when two teams were debating this very issue, and a student asked in cross-examination to another student: "Where is the black identity in America that is not equivocated with struggle?" Even at the regional competition this weekend, we were asked by our judges to juxtapose our success as a rookie team with our students' socioeconomic status.

Ultimately, this is why the language we use is super important. Yes, we can take back that term "ghetto", and yes, some of our students might not even see or take offense to that term. However, it's not just this one term. It is the amalgamation of the images and representations they see, the language they hear being used to describe them, the fact that their perception of the role of police in society is very different than majority culture, the fact that they can't hang out at a park in the afternoon without being harassed by authorities, etc. All of these add up to systemic racism.

I'll get off my soap-box now.

EDIT: That picture was gigantic.