Posted by Anton Abaya.
Engineer on team #419, Rambots, from BC High / UMass Boston and NASA, Mathsoft, Solidworks.
Posted on 2/29/2000 10:07 PM MST
How bout it FIRST?
Just think of all the robots struggling to add more stuff and reduce weight…
pretty please? with sugar on top?
that strobe light is 200lbs! among other heavy items.
What do you all think? I know it’s a good weight to work with. But still…
ANTON
Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
Posted on 3/1/2000 5:01 AM MST
In Reply to: 130lbs to 140lbs. posted by Anton Abaya on 2/29/2000 10:07 PM MST:
Anton,
If you made your plea in the first week or two you maybe had a chance of getting a favorable ruling, but at this point it is a virtual mathmatical certainty that FIRST will not change the rule.
If you think about it from FIRST’s perspective, you may even agree with them.
Your team needs the weight. But it could have been that your team NEEDED the weight 2 or 3 weeks ago and in order to comply with the weight requirements your team made some tough choices to get 10 lbs out of your machine.
Perhaps you spent 3 days of potential driving time to make ‘speed holes’ in your robot OR perhaps you took off (or more likely, never fully completed) a mechanism that you would have liked to have but could use if you were going to make weight OR perhaps you made serious reliability trade offs on several systems in order to make weight.
Regardless of what you did to make weight, done is done and you cannot easily get the drive time OR the mechanism OR the reliabiltity or whatever back.
If your team had really made those tough choices would you then be such a strong advocate of FIRST allowing other teams to avoid having to make those same hard choices?
I think that, at this point, fairness requires that FIRST keep the weight limit right where it is.
Joe J.
Posted by Lora Knepper.
Student on team #69, HYPER (Helping Youth Pursue Engineering & Robotics), from Quincy Public Schools and The Gillette Company.
Posted on 3/1/2000 7:17 AM MST
In Reply to: Not a chance… posted by Joe Johnson on 3/1/2000 5:01 AM MST:
Joe,
I understand where Anton is coming from here. Though I agree with you that for this year, the limit should and will remain the same, perhaps FIRST can look into an allowance for next year. With the weight of the battery and light, required elements that we can do nothing about, there should be an allowance for those elements, rather than be hurt by them. Just my 2 cents. Anyone else have a say?
Posted by Thomas A. Frank.
Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
Posted on 3/1/2000 9:58 AM MST
In Reply to: Re: Not a chance… posted by Lora Knepper on 3/1/2000 7:17 AM MST:
With the weight of the battery and light, required elements that we can do nothing about, there should be an allowance for those elements, rather than be hurt by them. Just my 2 cents. Anyone else have a say?
Hello All;
I would agree that for this year FIRST isn’t likely to change anything. As for the future, 130# DOES include an allowance for the battery; the limit was 120# the year before we went SLA, and the additional 10# is almost exactly the difference between the SLA and the drill batteries we used to use.
The light weighs 0.94 kg, a little over 2 pounds…it isn’t that big a deal, and is somewhat compensated for by the lighter controller this year (although the total control system weight is similar, depending, of course, on how many relays you need).
In years past we simply never worried about weight, and were always a bit over, working at the last minute to shave pounds (in our line of work, we’re volume constrained, not weight constrained, and it shows in how we think). This is the first year we’ve actually tried to track things as we went along, and (miracle of miracles), we were underweight at completion…with enough room for growth that we can actually add some decorations if we want.
Of course, we blew the estimates by a wide margin, but what else is new?
Tom Frank
Posted by Quentin Lewis.
Engineer on team #42, P.A.R.T.S - Prececision Alvirne Robotics Technology Systems, from Alvirne, Hudson NH.
Posted on 3/1/2000 12:58 PM MST
In Reply to: Re: Not a chance… posted by Thomas A. Frank on 3/1/2000 9:58 AM MST:
> With the weight of the battery and light,
> required elements that we can do nothing about,
> there should be an allowance for those elements,
> rather than be hurt by them. Just my 2 cents.
> Anyone else have a say?
I understand what you say…but remember that everyone in the competition has the same problem…and given that so most were able to oversome it, I would say that it was fair. (and this comes from me, who’s team was hacking and slashing almost up until the moment we placed the bot in the shipping crate!)
Posted by Anton Abaya.
Engineer on team #419, Rambots, from BC High / UMass Boston and NASA, Mathsoft, Solidworks.
Posted on 3/1/2000 3:31 PM MST
In Reply to: But we had a level playing field…(even with the ramp 
posted by Quentin Lewis on 3/1/2000 12:58 PM MST:
it takes very little effort to get a conversation going in here. hehe.
But yes, I do know about the unfair issue of increasing the weight. I was being selfish because we need to shed some excess weight. Haha.
If I were from other teams with robots that are fully functional, fully prepared, and fully under the weight limit, then I would totally disagree with this Anton. But in this case, uh uh… ME WANT MORE WEIGHT. hehe.
It does seem in fact that the MIDDLE line is by not counting the additional required items to be in the weight requirement (ditto from the past messages).
I wonder if FIRST will allow that. Also remember (to u veterans) that if FIRST were to give us an extra 10lbs to work with, not only will overweight robots benefit, but even the robots that want to add MORE mechanisms. Right? An extra arm may come in handy you know.
Thanks for all the replies!
A.A.
Posted by Justin Stiltner.
Student on team #388, Epsilon, from Grundy High School and NASA, American Electric Power, Town of Grundy.
Posted on 3/1/2000 6:14 PM MST
In Reply to: wow. posted by Anton Abaya on 3/1/2000 3:31 PM MST:
Were just a rookie team but the first thing that I did was to take everything that HAD to be on the robot (battery at least one realy at least one speed controller and other stuff that we knew would be on the bot) and weighed it and subtracted that weight from the 130lb. and that told me how much weight We had to work with.
our bot weighs 92lbs. by the way
(we used the KISS method of designing (keep it simple stupid))
Justin Stiltner
Team 388
Posted by Mike Sperber.
Engineer on team #175, Buzz, from Enrico Fermi High School and UTC/Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems.
Posted on 3/1/2000 9:41 AM MST
In Reply to: 130lbs to 140lbs. posted by Anton Abaya on 2/29/2000 10:07 PM MST:
Yup, the weight is sometimes very difficult to work with. It takes some deep thought in trying to determine what systems and features to go with, and which ones to toss out.
In real world engineering, it is not that easy to call up a customer and say ‘Hey, we could really use an extra 8% on the weight requirement.’
Nothing in engineering is easy, and part of engineering invloves having to make complicated design decisions based on given specifications.
Although I would love to see the weight requirement pushed above 130lbs, I think the 130lbs really makes you think about what you are designing. And forces you to make those complicated engineering design decisions. (Plus, think of all the fun you had when you put your robot on the scale for the first time!)
But then again, it never hurts to ask!
-mike
Posted by Michael Betts.
Engineer on team #177, Bobcat Robotics, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells.
Posted on 3/1/2000 10:46 AM MST
In Reply to: Re: 130lbs to 140lbs. posted by Mike Sperber on 3/1/2000 9:41 AM MST:
I agree that there is no way FIRST will (or should) change the weight this year.
I also agree with Mr. Sperber that it’s a real life trade off. Management always wants your product to weigh nothing, cost nothing and be 110% efficient.
Here is a good reason for keeping the weight down: The robot still has to be carried onto and off of the field. Usually by two of us ‘old folks’. It’s difficult to lift properly (from the knees) and stepping over the rail makes the job that much tougher.
10 pounds this year, 10 more next year… If we keep pushing the weight up, we are going to find out why OSHA has a weight limit on what a worker can lift unaided.
If the weight limit were 150: We would probably have gone with an iron base frame. Another subsystem such as Dr. J’s steering would have been incorporated. I’m positive that our robot would weigh in at 149.7 pounds (and people would still gripe about weight)!
Mike
Posted by Erin.
Student on team #1, The Juggernauts, from OTC-NE, Oxford High School and 3-D Services.
Posted on 3/1/2000 10:02 AM MST
In Reply to: 130lbs to 140lbs. posted by Anton Abaya on 2/29/2000 10:07 PM MST:
i agree, then my team would be 10 under!! then we wouldn’t have to stress so much anymore!!
But, I dont think they will change it now. :*(
-erin
Posted by Andy Grady.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Coach on team #42, P.A.R.T.S, from Alvirne High School and Daniel Webster College.
Posted on 3/1/2000 12:15 PM MST
In Reply to: 130lbs to 140lbs. posted by Anton Abaya on 2/29/2000 10:07 PM MST:
I don’t think its the components that makes us all so heavy, i think its is our ever growing complex ideas. Just think about it, this year we didn’t have to go as high with balls as we had to in the past, which eliminated a few lift systems. Hanging components are probably just about as heavy as last years pole grabbing components. The way i see it, we should all be lighter!!! Looks like FIRST is going to have to change the weight next year just to keep up with our brains! Of course I may be wrong
Good Luck all,
Andy Grady, DWC/Alvirne HS, Team 42
P.S. Any word yet on whether or not the KSC Regional is going to be televised?
P.P.S. Any word yet on the name of the competition?
So many questions, so little time!
Posted by Thomas A. Frank.
Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
Posted on 3/1/2000 1:50 PM MST
In Reply to: 130lbs to 140lbs. posted by Anton Abaya on 2/29/2000 10:07 PM MST:
Hello All;
There’s yet another reason to stay with our below 130 pounds…the drill motors.
FIRST notes in their maunal that these motors (which all experienced teams use for propulsion) were designed for driving screws and drilling holes, not for moving 130 pound robots…they are approaching the limits of what can reasonably be expetced of them in this regard. If the weight goes up further, you can expect to start seeing failures in the gearboxes etc.
No, unless FIRST finds us more powerful motors and batteries (we’re already exceeding the maximum current supply capability of the SLA’s*), the weight CAN’T go up much higher. Unless we have very slow machines…
Tom Frank
Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
Posted on 3/1/2000 6:13 PM MST
In Reply to: Another reason to stay below 130 lbs. posted by Thomas A. Frank on 3/1/2000 1:50 PM MST:
On a related topic, Don’t you think that they could have scaled this game without significant disadvantage?
I suppose we have a factor of about 4/5.
Using this scale factor, the robot could have shrunk to 4 ft high by about 2 1/2 deep by about 2 feet wide.
The 30 inch bar becomes a 2 ft bar.
The 6 foot goal & bar become about a 5 foot bar & goal.
The ramp becomes 10 inches rather than 12.
These are not very big compromises.
But the effect would have been robots that you can cart around in a van more easily, a field that perhaps more teams could have actually built, and finally, Standard PLAYGROUND BALLS rather than the eggs we have to put up with.
Ah well, a guy can dream can’t he?
Joe J.