What hath we wrought? 2016 Horror Stories

[AveryLevin.]

Originally Posted by AveryLevin.

At champs, our team (4276) got our intake arm broken out of its stand-offs. It was hanging uselessly in our robot. Unable to score, we went to our courtyard to play defense and, long story short, tipped a robot over, earning us a red card (https://youtu.be/z25Bbz4DlkY). This was our last match of the season, we were paired with the Cheesy Poofs, and we won with 4 RPs. Because of our red card we were given no points and dropped to 50-something place (we would have been at around 20 or 30 with the points). So we went back to the pits where we started cleaning up and, once again, repairing the broken arm. Overall, our team has seen a lot more breaking happen this year than in previous years.

Also a very sad moment: https://youtu.be/YHDG6jRnkQw

[SenorZ]

We learned that the proliferation of 3D printed parts in 2015 should not have been copied in 2016.

We broke some custom intake rollers (in all fairness, after 2 regionals and some heavy contact)

We also bent/destroyed our intake roller shaft (0.5'' steel bent at about a 10deg angle at the midpoint) during a collision with Team 179 at Champs... I think they broke too.

Oh, and the chains... so many broken chains...

[StAxis]

It didn't happen till the off season, but we completely destroyed a ball shifter gear. Other damage includes innumerable broken chains, 3 destroyed intake plates, and a bent frame rail.

https://imgur.com/a/JLzT2

The gear on the other side hasn't lost any teeth yet but is showing a pretty bad wear pattern so we're replacing both.

[euhlmann]

Originally Posted by SenorZ

We learned that the proliferation of 3D printed parts in 2015 should not have been copied in 2016.

We broke some custom intake rollers (in all fairness, after 2 regionals and some heavy contact)

I think we've broken almost every 3D printed part on our robot at least once

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by euhlmann

I think we've broken almost every 3D printed part on our robot at least once

Impressive, I don't think 125 broke any of the 3d printed parts on the bot last year. This included the entire intake roller being 3d printed.

Guess it just goes to show you that 3d printed parts aren't inherently weaker it's all in how you design and use them.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Impressive, I don't think 125 broke any of the 3d printed parts on the bot last year. This included the entire intake roller being 3d printed.

Guess it just goes to show you that 3d printed parts aren't inherently weaker it's all in how you design and use them.

I mean, they are inherently weaker than injection molded parts - it's just a matter of if they are designed and built strong enough for the application. But your general point is right, I'm just being pedantic.

In general, this thread has many examples of design practices that are potentially fine being written off as universally bad ideas that can't work, or design concepts being blamed as the root cause of problems that they may not have been. 14 tooth pinions do not universally fail in 3 CIM gearboxes, for example, nor do plastic hubs.

If making a general rule and building very conservatively works for your team, that's great, just be sure not to give things out as general advice without a solid grasp of the "why".

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I mean, they are inherently weaker than injection molded parts - it's just a matter of if they are designed and built strong enough for the application. But your general point is right, I'm just being pedantic.

In general, this thread has many examples of design practices that are potentially fine being written off as universally bad ideas that can't work, or design concepts being blamed as the root cause of problems that they may not have been. 14 tooth pinions do not universally fail in 3 CIM gearboxes, for example, nor do plastic hubs.

If making a general rule and building very conservatively works for your team, that's great, just be sure not to give things out as general advice without a solid grasp of the "why".

You're right, the intent of "inherently weaker" was "inherently too weak". They are weaker.

[troy_dietz]

9330 during their second semifinals match at BeachBlitz.

We almost scored a low goal like this, but the right side of the intake hit the main breaker. We were able to aim reasonably well with the turret bolted back on for the finals, but that robot won't be scoring any time soon.

[scca229]

Originally Posted by troy_dietz

9330 during their second semifinals match at BeachBlitz.

We almost scored a low goal like this, but the right side of the intake hit the main breaker. We were able to aim reasonably well with the turret bolted back on for the finals, but that robot won't be scoring any time soon.

The best part about this one was that the breaker was hit when the bot wasn't on the batter. It was pushed on just before the end of the match.

*As an aside, earlier in the competition we also got to see first-hand 330's main bot do a recreation of the Einstein gymnastics after flopping on their back. That was cool to see in person*

[TAlholm]

Don't use a 14t gear in a 3 cim gearbox.

[Karibou]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the robot fire at Michigan State Champs yet.

Originally Posted by billbo911

I witnessed a Defence attack a volunteer. I saw it roll up and smash her fingers right in front of me before I even had time to react. (Sorry, no pictures for that one. This is not the place for that.)

Yeah. I could go with never seeing that again too

[BumblingBuilder]

We forgot to loctite our competition bot's gearboxes.

This lead to the horror story that was day one and early day two of North Star

The CIMs started sagging on us.

And this is where our errant design kicked in. The back of the CIMs were practically pushed right up against each other, so taking the gearbox out was not exactly the easiest thing to do. We did have our practice bot gearboxes on hand (which were loctite treated), so to save time were were going to just switch the gearboxes out for the practice bot

But this was also at the end of day one, and we played first match on day two. We were internally panicking. The swapping of gearboxes would take a long time, and we were being pushed as the pits were closing.

We left the pits with no drive gearboxes in the robot, and we had very little time before opening ceremonies on day 2. The first robots to queue are supposed to be queued up during the ceremony, but KING TeC was not there. We still had to put in the gearboxes, redo the electrical, and test to make sure everything worked.

In the latest possible time we got the robot out, but we walked out on the field not knowing if the robot was going to move.

In a stroke of luck everything worked and we had a pretty good match. The relief was beautiful.

But we were setback significantly from this problem. We didn't have time to address any of the other things we had planned to look at, so the quals matches in general ended up being underwhelming for us. We didn't show off nearly as much as we wanted to.