Minibot Competition at St. Louis

[CassCity2081]

Team 2081, Icarus, has modified our minibot pole a little bit to include a sensor for when the minibot crosses the deployment line and put switches at the top. Both of these are hooked up to a timer. When the minibot crosses the sensor the timer starts and when it hits the top the timer stops.

The real point of this post is I'm wondering if teams at Nationals would be interested in turning this into a fun competition at our pits. We thought last night of bringing the pole to Nationals and also bringing along a whiteboard to keep track of the top three fastest minibots and they would get prizes at the of Nationals. To keep our pits clear this would only be the minibot and not the deployment.

All I am wondering is if teams would be interested and if they had any ideas for prizes we could give out.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

This actually sounds kind of cool! For later in the weekend of course. Don't want to give away too many secrets.

[Chris Hibner]

Sounds like fun. I'll try and convince our minibot team to give it a try.

[tyronott]

What kind of prizes are we talking

[CassCity2081]

Originally Posted by tyronott

What kind of prizes are we talking

We are open for suggestions!

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by tyronott

What kind of prizes are we talking

Just knowing that you the fastest minibot should be all the prize that you need.

Al, I think you just scared the other 348 teams registered for the championship (if not, they should be).

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

Al, I think you just scared the other 348 teams registered for the championship (if not, they should be).

Wana be scared? They were fast at Wisconsin, they were faster at Midwest, and they have had all this time to get faster!

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by tyronott

What kind of prizes are we talking

I'll put up a can of SPAM for the winner.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Richard

I'll put up a can of SPAM for the winner.

I'll put up a couple of TETRIX motors. Of course they're not SPAM, but they smell like it.

[Joe Ross]

It sounds like 1279 did something similar at the Washington DC regional.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

It sounds like 1279 did something similar at the Washington DC regional.

1279 had their pole set up at both NYC and DC. It was very interesting to see how fast some minibots actually were.

I think every team should run both their minibot and deployment system on a timed pole once. It'd be interesting to see how many 1.1 second minibots are actually 1.5 second minibots and vice versa.

[BJC]

Originally Posted by thefro526

1279 had their pole set up at both NYC and DC. It was very interesting to see how fast some minibots actually were.

I think every team should run both their minibot and deployment system on a timed pole once. It'd be interesting to see how many 1.1 second minibots are actually 1.5 second minibots and vice versa.

I like this idea too. I know that we have been measuring minibot times using a slowmotion camera to film the climb then counting frames. We found that most minibots were generally about .2 slower than what people said they were.
Definatly a cool idea

[john.hobbins]

Well, I was wondering to do with all the minibots we have. I was going to use them for a class competition. But this idea seems better

[Mike dennis]

Originally Posted by Richard

I'll put up a can of SPAM for the winner.

I like the sound of that

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Mike dennis

I like the sound of that

Well, since 2081 and SPAM are both in Curie, it does make sense, eh?

I'll bring the 'prize' to 2081's pit -- maybe someone can perch it on the top of their pole!