How do you feel toward you robot?

[DjAlamose]

Here is a poll for this thread (in another thread......)

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=44798

[Daniel Morse]

A friend and I were the two primary mechanical designers this year, and let me say that we got pretty attached to our baby. We stressed simplicity this year, and as of right now, it has paid off. You can see a front view of it here
It has a collector on the back, which scoops balls from the floor, and to date has not had a single foul up. On the front, we have a door that holds balls in, and it is simple as well, and again has worked very well in all of our tests. Our Omni wheels are also simple, and also have worked great. Strengths-simplicity, efficiency, durability (check the bumpers), manuverability. Weaknesses-hard to shoot into, only can score on the one point goals, is a tricky drive system (our programmer is dynamite with it, luckily ). I think we did well this year, but that remains to be seen at competition. If anyone is at Manchester BAE regional or Boston regional, come check us out.

[the_short1]

KISS principle really realy does make a world of a difference to rookie teams, remember that and it will lead to good things. But as someone said, no matter what .. be proud... . 6 weeks... read that again.. 6 weeks you designed and built a WHOLE ROBOT and having to teach students! i know i felt the pressure, as i knew how to do the electronics by myself, but having to teach a few gr9s took up most of my time.

so i am proud of our robot, for the shear fact that its a robot, that most people only dream to have the opportunity to play with, and that mostly only large companies get to build! So be fortunate that you get to play with a robot that YOU built!

-kevin

[comwiz7]

I think our robot is great! I had absolutely nothing to do with the building, as I'm the programmer but I really must say that my team did a great job on it.

[irishninja]

Nothing but love. At my school we have a tradition where at the end of the year the seniors post crush lists from the entire high school career up on one day. Last year, a senior and now mentor put the four robots he was here for up there to. Again Nothing but love. Love love and umm... more love. Its tired love, but its love. How many times can i use the word love in this lovely post?

[YonZ]

Originally Posted by irishninja

At my school we have a tradition where at the end of the year the seniors post crush lists from the entire high school career up on one day. Last year, a senior and now mentor put the four robots he was here for up there to.

yes, I testify for that occurance...

It's great seeing it all come together in the 3/4 months that it is the focus of our lives. I love being able to feel proud about our robot and being able to point out the parts and holes and stuff that I contributed.
Having been on my team for three years, I know that feeling of nostalgia you get whenever you lay eyes on an old robot-- it brings back wonderful memories of build and competition, and the many reasons I suffer from robot-fever during off-season.

[Rick TYler]

Dillon's post should be moved to a new thread and made sticky. Great insights. He managed to put things in perspective.

[mrmummert]

Hello all...

Hmmm I mave mixed feelings about the robot we have this year compared to last year....This years robot was a pain to plan, build,make changes to,stay in weight and correct problems compared to last years. But then again it won us the regional so I guess it made up for all the trouble it gave. Fittingly we named it "Trouble".

Last years although it had some upper arm alterations pretty much was built
as planned and have very few problems...even for a rookie robot. It got us thru regionals were we placed 6th and luckly (as rookie all stars) to atlanta.
We've used the heck out of it (we tested over and over again our current 2006 robot auto modes on it until this years was ready) and
used it for demostrations all the rest of the year with very little trouble
again. We called it MB (for Mechanical Bronco) and were gonna call this years
MB2 but as I said...this years was such a pain.......

[Dillon Compton]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Dillon's post should be moved to a new thread and made sticky. Great insights. He managed to put things in perspective.

Hey, thanks! Always nice to hear some good feedback, and I'm honored to be nominated for a sticky

[Dan Zollman]

Maybe this is heresy, and maybe it's just because I didn't spend a lot of time working on the robot itself (I was doing a lot of other stuff), but I don't consider our robot a person. The rest of our team said "goodbye" TO the robot, and wrote notes on the inside of the crate to keep the robot company while it's away.

I signed the crate since everyone else was doing that, but the robot really doesn't have feelings. It's not that I don't like the robot, I just don't think it's appropriate to spend time talking to the robot right before it ships.

[Artless_Grace]

If our robot was a bit more soft, I think I'd hug it. But I don't think that matters, because I've already hugged it when no one was looking... >.>

Err...

I'd say, the only thing I don't like about our robot is that hugging it is an accomplishment, and we needed a bit more defense. I'm constantly afraid someone is going to stick an arm in one of our conveyor belts and snap us in half. I was also disappointed that none of my ideas were included on the robot. But as long as its functioning, ^_^ Its okeday with me.

Now, if only we could attach wings..

[IraJason]

Originally Posted by worldbringer

Maybe this is heresy, and maybe it's just because I didn't spend a lot of time working on the robot itself (I was doing a lot of other stuff), but I don't consider our robot a person. The rest of our team said "goodbye" TO the robot, and wrote notes on the inside of the crate to keep the robot company while it's away.

I signed the crate since everyone else was doing that, but the robot really doesn't have feelings. It's not that I don't like the robot, I just don't think it's appropriate to spend time talking to the robot right before it ships.

Come on Z man... it has a name, we all love it, and it nearly ran over Mr. Kressly a few times. How could something like that not be human?

I miss our little robot. It was my focus for six weeks and one day it's just gone, picked up by the mystery men who drive those FedEx trucks. As I've said before, I'm proud that our team was able to produce a fully function robot quite a few days before ship date and not have to pull all-nighters to do it. I think everybody on our team (except for worldbringer I'm guessing now ) was both excited and sad to see our first robot be picked up and shipped off. I know I was.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Rickertsen2

How did you feel about this year's robot?

I am proud of the robot our team built. It's far from perfect, there's still things to be done or modified. But it can score some points, so we are very happy about that.

At one point we had 3 differnt people building three seperate designs.

This sounds like you are a mostly-student-build team. I don't want to reopen the student/mentor role thing again. I'll just say that anything that the students build, you have to be proud of.

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics.

I see all these amazing machines, and I think, gee, we could'a done that, why not? Why not is because we didn't think of it. FIRST Robotics is not just about building, but also about imagining. And about building on past experience.

I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

In the disappointment over not achieving perfection, we often forget that this is the most important aspect. Not what we did, but how we did it.

I was really excited about programming this year. I was finally going to have a chance to show off my stuff and mess wiht PID, vision systems etc on a FIRST robot. Well, since our other programmer graduated last year, found that up until 3 days before ship i was soo tied up with mechanical things that i did not write a single line of code.

I think you are in role that can be particularly disappointing and demoralizing. You the sometimes forgotten last part of the team. They pay no attention to you until you get to competition and your programs don't work. You asked for a week or two with the completed machine, but you got 2 days (if even that). Well, that's how it works in life too. If you are the last part of the process, you get the blame when the project is late, no matter how late the parts upstream from you were - I know that all too well from my job. You need to make up for all the mistakes and failures ahead of you. If you do, well that was what they all expected you to do. If you don't ...

It all works(in theory ) but i fear we will not get our more than say 6 balls in auto.

And that's 6 more than many other teams will get.

[KenWittlief]

"How do I feel?! The question is not logical!" - Mr Spock

[Jeremiah H]

[quote=

I feel like i have wasted the last 6 weeks of my life after seeing all the other robot pics. I suppose i should look on the bright side, It was an AWESOME journey to get here.

[/QUOTE]

Hey, the season ain't over yet. You still have the competitions to look forward to, and I am sure that you have learned something for your time that will help you in the future. Remember too, the best looking robot is not nescessarily the best robot.

As for 393, we have had an excellent year in my opinion. We decided early on to work within our engineering capabilities, so we weren't trying to do something that was going to be extremely difficult. Our bot came out looking great, even though we had to drop 8.6 pounds in one day <that was fun> I hated having to cut up those nice, pretty fenders... but thats the way it goes. Anyway, like i said, i know looks aren't everything in a good robot, but they sure make everybody feel good.