Arizona Regional

[Redhead Jokes]

Team 698 won 294's Gracious Professionalism Award! They were the only team nominated 3xs. Great job!

[Eismann]

We were not forced to take them off by the officals we elected to take them because we felt that we didn't need them. The robot is better with out them we feel.

I would also like to congratulate the winners of the awards and the overall comp.

[Travis Covington]

Ill try and get some pics up in the next few days...

Not alot of competition action (too busy in the pits) But i got some nice pretty close ups of some of the big name teams...hehe

Ill try and get em up quick..

TC

[Koci]

i guess we've been forgotten...

team 624 won the delphi's driving tomorrow's technology award

[Eismann]

I took like 400 some pictures. If there is any robot you want to see I can get you the picture.

[Ryan Dognaux]

No one was forgotten.. I think it's just in the crazyness of it all, we all get worked up over our own awards, or ones that just come to mind. I'd like to congratulate every team there for making the Arizona regional what it was - amazing. Even if you didn't win an award, it doesn't matter, it seems like the majority was having a good time and learning some things, becoming excited.. and that's what it's all about right there. Awards are only a small part of FIRST and it's what you do outside the competition arena that counts. Thanks and congrats to everyone!

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Gope
How is team 980 doing? I heard they hit the stacks incredibly fast.

We won 9 out of our 11 qualifying rounds and made it to the semi-finals.

Our arm did very well for the most part, and I think everyone would agree that we were fastest to the bins.

Late in the qualifying rounds, several enterprising teams gave us some trouble in two matches by using bins to block our autonomous arm lift and rotation. Once this caused our arm to hit the lexan wall and just hung there. We reprogrammed the arm, but later had a broken drill motor transmission. Our arm swung out and stopped right at the bins in the semi-finals. There were some tense moments as we tried to stow the arm and make sure it didn't go out of bounds.

Saturday, we won the Motorola Quality Technical Award which qualifies us for the Nationals. We were pretty jazzed about that. Now we just have to do some major fundraising. If we pull it off, it will be pretty intense leaving for the nationals 4 days after the S. California Regional.

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Koci
i guess we've been forgotten...

team 624 won the delphi's driving tomorrow's technology award

Your team was the only one that I saw build a 4 stack that was still standing at the end of the match, and you then made it to the top of the ramp. Wow!

[Collin Fultz]

234's flail is sped up and works beautifully and no legal box placement can stop it. we also won 9 of 11.

[Matt Brinza]

Congrats to team 980! You certainly have made a great deal of progress, and I look forward to seeing you at Nationals again.

[David Brinza]

Thanks, Matt.

Coming from a Team 16 member, your congratulations mean even more...

Can't wait to see you in a ThunderBots' shirt in Houston!

[Daniel Brim]

A question for 968... to get the outriggers on, were they just attached or did you have two robots? For those who weren't there, 968 had a stacking attachment of Thursday and changed to the outrigger design on Friday.

[sanddrag]

I really don't know how 980 got so much into their robot. That giant pole, two drivetrains, and a stacker that can also push. Wow.

[David Brinza]

Originally posted by sanddrag
I really don't know how 980 got so much into their robot. That giant pole, two drivetrains, and a stacker that can also push. Wow.

Some intense brainstorming, some of the most knowledgeable engineers and dedicated students (all apparently allergic to sleep) you would ever want to work with, a specialty machine shop partner and pixie dust to lighten the robot.


We wanted a robot capable of all aspects of the game, we just couldn't figure out how to get all of that under the bar!!

[Travis Covington]

A question for 968... to get the outriggers on, were they just attached or did you have two robots? For those who weren't there, 968 had a stacking attachment of Thursday and changed to the outrigger design on Friday.

The wings and 4-bar stacking arms are all connected with clevis pins and quick disconnects pneumatic and electrical connectors. On Friday we did a lot...changed sprockets twice, redid wiring, removed the 4-bar, added lead weights, etc etc etc.

We can remove the wings and put the 4-bar back on at any time. That’s why some of you noticed 5 speed controllers. 2 of them are for the fisher price motors that raise/lower the arms.

The 4-Bar might get put back on in LA with some other minor changes. We would love to be able to stack, but our drivers are just not comfortable enough to stack effectively in competition. Hopefully with the parts we are making in these next few days we will be even more competitive in LA (hint: more motors, more speeds)

The autonomous mode should work as well (we had a few bugs and it rarely would work) we should also be able to have both the wings and the 4-bar and still be under weight.

**Just a side note to all of those people curious about our engineering efforts and team organization. We have 1 main advisor, Bob Anderson, who is the teacher at West Covina HS. Him along with Kirk Oden, and Myself are the only advisors that are on this team. We have no engineering help. Kirk and myself are the only “engineers” on our team. Our ‘engineering’ status comes from only 2 years as mechanical engineering majors and 4 years on each of our previous teams (Kirk with 4 years on Woodside team 100 and myself at Monta Vista team 115) I wouldn’t call ourselves engineers quite yet.

This is our second year with this team. We started it last year with the help of Bob and Scott McElroy. We have no mills, lathes, machine tools, and limited access to the woodshop. The robot we had in competition was made almost entirely by a horizontal band saw, drill press and aprox. 10 hours on a mill or lathe for the wheel blocks, plugs for the 4-bar, and a few misc. pieces that required a mill.

We have recently found a machine shop class and enrolled in it (primarily for machine tool access) and will be fabricating a few new *secret* parts before the deadline this Wednesday. I think these parts will help us have an edge at competition in LA.