Week #5 - Silicon Valley Regional

[ejSabathia]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

How do the cheesy poofs do it. Year after year in their exsistance they have walked away with an undisputed title from SVR. Could it be something Mechanical or do they too have something Magical in them. Hopefully a cheesy poof representative will answer all our questions on how they did it again esp. after too hard falls after their cabling mechanism for the hook snaps / breaks.

Once again congrads to them and their alliance.

Maybe next year a different 3 teams will have a chance in taking home the big trophy cuz 254's trophu case have got to be heavy from all those BIG trophies and medals. j/k

Good Luck guys in GA

our srv titles are never undisputed. we've gotta face alot tough teams to get them. every year we set out to make the best bot we can and push the envelope just a little more.

as for the cable...OMG! frustrating...as one of the main mech. guys on the team let me tell chasing that problem was so annoying. and i almost cried when our bot fell the 4-5 feet it did. we all went grabbing for allen wrenches and screw drivers thinking we'd have to do some kinda overhaul on the drive side it fell on. and we were stunned that the robot didn't even suffer a scratch from the fall. no dents no nada...i dunno. i guess the hdpe absorbed the impact.

thanks to our alliance partners 971 and 852! we've been impressed with 971's hanging system since we watched them test it @ our lab, GREAT JOB GUYS!. and as for 852 we don't know how they stayed around till the second round of picking but we love you guys! awsome team year to year!

[Roland]

Originally Posted by p0iZeN-254

as for the cable...OMG! frustrating...as one of the main mech. guys on the team let me tell chasing that problem was so annoying.

We keep telling you, use Spectra! Congratulations and thanks so much to both you and 971!

[Matt D]

Originally Posted by Roland

We keep telling you, use Spectra! Congratulations and thanks so much to both you and 971!

LOL! Maybe we will at Nationals. Thanks again for being allied with us (again). WE're so glad no one picked you in the first round.

[Jay Lundy]

Originally Posted by Roland

We keep telling you, use Spectra! Congratulations and thanks so much to both you and 971!

We think we have the problem worked out. In the match where it fell 4 feet, our ratchet wouldn't catch, so i kept driving the winch hoping it would catch at some point. I was just about to let off the winch and just let the robot fall when the top of our robot hit the bar and the cable snapped. We had set the winch up incorrectly before the match which is why it never ratcheted.

But then we went out and hung both matches in the finals, so we think it's fixed.

[10intheCrunch]

I almost cried too when that robot came down. It winches up pretty slow, at least compared to the monumental speed on the way down. In a split second we were down and tipped (the first time we've ever fallen over, I suppose), and no one on our side could see anything but the bottom of the bot, so we had no idea what the damage was. Turns out when Justin and I went to get it off the field, everything looked fine; we were even still powered. Finally got that cable fixed and put up a great score in the final match. Thanks to all at the regional.

[Dennis Jenks]

Originally Posted by Roland

We keep telling you, use Spectra! Congratulations and thanks so much to both you and 971!

OK here’s the cable scoop, in the earlier matches our cable was fairly ridged, as we would winch up we believe it was pushing up against a small radius pin that holds our ratchet in place. Since we drive away as we winch, a side load was being applied to the cable (which is only intended to withstand tensile loading). The cable would kink and then eventually snap.

Later we went to a more flexible cable, and didn’t have any problems until we sent the robot out without properly setting up the ratchet. When Jay winched up the ratchet couldn’t engage and we kept back driving down. Not one to give up, Jay kept at winching up and trying to engage the ratchet until…BAM! The top of the bot hit the bar then the bottom of the bot hit the floor…OUCH! Apparently our winch delivers 900+ lbs because we snapped that cable ourselves. Amazingly the robot didn’t have a scratch on it.

The only thing we don’t like about the flexible cable is that it tends to fray and we have to change the cable every 4-5 matches, which we will do if need be. As for the Spectra, the guide we use to route the cable across the spool would have cut through Spectra like a piece of string. So although we may redesign the guide and use Spectra at Nationals it really wasn’t an option at the time.

Good luck to all,
Dennis

[Cory]

Heh, we wanted to pick 852 the whole time, but thought that 254 was going to decline 971 and pick 852. When they actually accepted, I wasn't paying any attention and didnt see that they hadn't picked 852. We made it to the finals anyways, so I can't really be too mad

Great job to teams 971, 254, and 852. We couldn't have lost to a better alliance.

We were absolutely amazed that we were finalists. For those of you who don't know, we went 0-8-1 at Sacramento, and finished dead last. For us to not only seed 9th, but captain the 6th alliance, and make it to the final match was simply amazing.

I really want to thank our alliance partners. Without them, we would never have made it past the QF's. 691 has a great hanging bot, and so does 1280. You guys truly deserved the Inspiration Award, and we look forward to competing with you next year.

I also want to thank team 1422 for being such great pit neighbors. You guys are awesome also, and we had lots of fun hanging out with you guys last night. We'll see you in two weeks!

Cory

[Salik Syed]

Yeah Sillicon Valley regional was pretty cool especially at finals ...254 dominated i was amazed at how fast they played the game .... makes me want to build a robot that can actually be competitive with them.... ... our team (701) Did very well compared to Sac... at sac we got picked although we were 30th seed, this time we figured out how to hang, fixed our planetary drive, and played fast, we were manueverable, our driver was REALLy good... we hung 1 match against team 47 and team ??? in which we won that was really fun esp finally hanging .. Unfortunately our last match we were 7th seed and then lost to 115 and 972 who played well, I couldn't get the hook to swing around and so we went down to 13th seed (FINAL) ... we didn't get picked although 12th seed made it as an alliance leader .... thats too bad o well.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Salik Syed

Yeah Sillicon Valley regional was pretty cool especially at finals ...254 dominated i was amazed at how fast they played the game .... makes me want to build a robot that can actually be competitive with them.... ... our team (701) Did very well compared to Sac... at sac we got picked although we were 30th seed, this time we figured out how to hang, fixed our planetary drive, and played fast, we were manueverable, our driver was REALLy good... we hung 1 match against team 47 and team ??? in which we won that was really fun esp finally hanging .. Unfortunately our last match we were 7th seed and then lost to 115 and 972 who played well, I couldn't get the hook to swing around and so we went down to 13th seed (FINAL) ... we didn't get picked although 12th seed made it as an alliance leader .... thats too bad o well.

Bubbling over with INSPIRATION!
I love it!!!

[JVN]

Originally Posted by mtaman02

How do the cheesy poofs do it?

They play smart, they play hard, and they do the best they can to be as competitive as they can. While they're doing all this, they are also taking the time to help others, share their knowledge, and work to "push the FIRST envelope".

My one experience competing with 254 was in Cleveland 2002. If one thing was clear, it was that they knew EXACTLY what was going on, what we needed to do to win, and what our opponents were going to do. I imagine, this attitude toward competition is one of the major reasons for their success. Stay calm, stay focused, and do what needs to be done.

(Ohh... and build a darned good robot to help you along, and pick darned good partners who play the same way you do. )