Anyone else with a really bad robot?

[Lord Nerdlinger]

Our team is composed of 11 high school kids, no mentors, no college kids, etc. This is our first year, and the only real reason we have a team going is b/c we got lucky with some funding. Anyway, I finished the drive system today (almost) and our robot moves, but it's loud, shaky, covered in grease, stuff falls off, it's just all around terrible. We have nothing else on our robot except for the wheels, and the motors. Which we ran for a while, didn't realize they were getting so hot, and actually melted the wire onto the frame

So, does anyone else have a piece of junk robot? Becuase I've seen some pictures and were're getting pretty depressed.

*note Pictures can be seen here if you don't believe the crappyness, you have to copy/paste for it to work (my server sucks)
http://68.4.94.105:60000/robot/bin/

The files are compressed for you peoples with 56k's, pics are about 60 k, and just in that directory.

Please give us hope :-)

[Ian W.]

hey, be happy your robot moves. our robot isn't even close to being built. we have a bunch of random pieces from our machine shop. some chassis pieces, a bunch of the transmission, a random piece of box aluminimum, but nothing that actually goes together. that means, we have tons of pieces, but not one is put together. at the moment, your robot is 1000x better than mine, if only for the single fact that it actually works. so quit complaining.

[Matt Attallah]

DUDE! SCHWING! Take it easy!! NO ONE IS ACCEPTABLE IN THEIR FIRST YEAR!!! They always take a year to know/know not what to do. Our first year we just sat, hummed, and smoked!! We didn't even move. Just take it easy! You live and than learn. Just take everything in stride and you will be ok...

Just a little advice from me, "Big Grand Master Pimp"

[Keith Chester]

Calm down. I wouldn't say no one is expecting you to make a National Champion, for anything is possible in FIRST. But having trouble as a first year team IS expected. It's how you deal with it.

Frankly, your robot looks fine right now. During our first few years, we kind of caught on fire more than once... and look how far we've come...

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by Lord Nerdlinger
Please give us hope :-)

I may get this story's facts a little wrong cuz I wasn't there but,


have you heard of the six hour robot?

A rookie team showed up at the competition with only a box of parts. Chatsworth and Beach Bots built their robot in six hours, and guess what, it placed, from what I heard, higher than the teams who built it.

Your robot moves. Rejoice and see what a little luck brings you at the competition.

[EIROBOTICS86]

Check tis one out guys

[BBFIRSTCHICK]

Team 1077 has a piece of junk robot!!! We do not even have a moving frame!!! Our team consists of 10 kids from high school and 2 college guys.......yet only about..... 5 kids work!! Our transmissions are still being worked on, our arm is in peace's, ahhhh I dunno.... Instead of piece of junk I think our robot is going to be named MIA (Missing in Action) If we get the bot done we will kick butt, but at this rate I have no clue! Must remain optimistic.

[Jeremy_Mc]

i guess we're a blessed rookie team. we have a moving frame and our subsystems are almost ready to be put on the bot. we have about 8 high school kids, one teacher, two other adults, and three engineers.

you can see our bot at http://www.firstubergeeks.com/gallery if you're curious to see what a rookie team came up with.

just don't give up...you never know what you'll come up with and what luck will bestow upon you

*jeremy

[BBFIRSTCHICK]

We are a rookie team was well....well kindda.....We have done FIRST in the past with a pervious team. Our college guys this is there 5 year doing FIRST, and the majority of the kids this is our 3rd or 4th. We just tend to eat crap till the last week....will we ever learn... lol

[sanddrag]

We are mounting some pillow blocks and things on top of nylon spacers. We make all our gearbox mounting holes one oversize to allow for some slop in fitting. Does that count for being junk? We have 16 students, 1 teacher, four very busy at work engineers, and 1 college student. We will have our drivetrain nearly done by the end of Monday.

[Gadget470]

I can't see the pictures now, I guess whoever is running the server has it down.

But regardless of how it looks, if it moves, and you have a good driver, you have a chance.

My old team, 247, had a very ugly bot. Seriously, it looked like a shopping cart with duct tape. What'd they win? Rookie All-Star at a regional and were finalists.

Don't fret that your robot is junk unless it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, ask other teams for help. Last year with 247 we didn't have enough traction with what we had on our wheels. Team 68, Truck Town Thunder, had some really good stuff they used on their treads. We asked if we could use about 3' of it and they gave it to us. What happened from there? Semi-Finalists (losing to Truck Town and their alliance).. Next regional? Finalists (with Truck Town as an alliance member).

If other teams have resources (people, materials, knowledge) to spare, almost every single one of them will be willing to loan it out.

You gotta still have hope and get as much practice as you can in.

[Lord Nerdlinger]

ya, it's my server and for some reason it has decided that it shall work no more.

Trying to get it working again.. but you're not missing much anyway.

[illumanat'i]

the best advice anyone can give you is do your best, and ask anyone at your regionals who looks good for help... its my experience that almost everyone who can will help you do anything... some teams even bring miny machine shops, so if you ask around, someone can help your bot do more than shake and bake

[Lord Nerdlinger]

k, I think I realized what's wrong, my server sucks so you have to copy and paste the link for it to work

I also put a little .htm file so all the pics will just show up, no directory business.

Sorry for that problem.

link is:http://68.4.94.105:60000/robot/bin

[Greg Ross]

Try http://68.4.94.105:60000/robot/bin/index.htm. It worked for me. Also, http://68.4.94.105:60000/robot/bin/ gave me a directory listing.

BTW, I've seen machines that look much less professional than yours. You had a little setback. Suck it up, and get it fixed. You'll be fine.