2004 Survey

FIRST General Forum
1

I am doing a research paper on the robotics competition, and I have a few questions for people to answer.

1)Team Name_______________________________

2)Team Number____________________________

3)How many people on the team?_____________________

4)How many guys?____________________________

5)How Many girls?___________________________

6)What does everyone do_________________________________

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) __________

  2. Do you prototype first?______________________________

  3. How many people design things?_______________________________

  4. How many people build things?________________________________

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?___________________________

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)________________________________

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?____________________________

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?____________________________

  2. What does your autonomous do?_______________________________________________

Other information
Speed (fps)

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)

Agility (1-10)

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way?

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)

Personal Info

What is your name?

Age?

How long have you been on the team?

What was your role on the team?

If its possible can you send your replies to my e-mail
[email protected]

Thank you for your cooperation

2

1)Team Name: Newport Robotics Group
2)Team Number: 948

3)How many people on the team? ~30

4)How many guys? ~27
5)How Many girls? 3
6)What does everyone do PR team, Animation Team, Build/Design Team, Web Site Team

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) Design takes about 2 days. Final designs are often “just-in-time” designed.

  2. Do you prototype first? Very rarely.

  3. How many people design things? A few

  4. How many people build things? About 10

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? “Core” team puts in around more than 16 hours a week.

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?

Yes, we have professional engineers. We have two professional programmers, and two who own a machine shop.

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years) 3 years

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? 1 week max.

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

We design to do everything well, but we go to competition and find out what two things we do best, and actually do only those things.

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

After the first day of practice on Thursday at PNWR, we found out our winch motor could get backdriven and let out robot glide down to the floor from the hook. So we used a dremel and hacksaw and created notches on our winch drum and created a ratchet using a servo, a paper clip, and a randomly shaped piece of scrap metal.

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?
    1 week

  2. What does your autonomous do?
    2 modes: ram our goal under opponent’s ball release; block opponents ball tee from being triggered

Other information
Speed (fps)
don’t know! medium-high
Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)
9.5
Agility (1-10)
8

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way?
no.
Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?
no.
Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)
4th seed
Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)
n/a

Personal Info

What is your name?

Age?
11th grade
How long have you been on the team?
3 years (since team creation)
What was your role on the team?
student leader, programmer, webmaster, …

3

1)Team Name____ sigmac@t

2)Team Number____ 108

3)How many people on the team?_____about 40

4)How many guys?____ 30

5)How Many girls?_____ 10

6)What does everyone do? we are always ready to get done with whatever needs to be done…

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) i would say about a week. since we go for the strategy first and then decide what kind of robot we should build.

  2. Do you prototype first?___ yes students comes in with their own prototype and presents their idea.

  3. How many people design things?_ Mechanical team.

  4. How many people build things?____ students get their hands on… we have about 10 people for the shop.

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? Thursdays… 3 to 6… and saturday 8 till whenever.

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students? Yes, we are sponsored by motorola. and we have few engineers who are great and always works with the students.

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years). this is Jim’s first year driving.

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? none since we were working on it even the last mins before we put it in the crate.

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

Designed to do everything

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

spcial things… umm… reminds me of the transmission and the arm this year is very strong.

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? it was the first year that actually software team got the robot from last year and worked on it.

  2. What does your autonomous do? goes for the 10 point ball. also can be used as defense.

Other information
Speed (fps) high gear- 11 ft. per sec, low gear- 3 ft. per sec.

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest) 8

Agility (1-10) 7

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? no, they always have worked with us.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? hopefully not… not that i know of…

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) forget but since our robot wasnt working i dont think we were seeding high.

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) Kenny Ardizone whos one of our engineer got the woody flowers award. also last year was our best year. 5 awards. and also won a regional

Personal Info

What is your name? Arefin Bari

Age? 17

How long have you been on the team? 3 years

What was your role on the team? I am the mechanical lead.

4

1)Team Name WATSON Robotics

2)Team Number 957

3)How many people on the team?25

4)How many guys?19

5)How Many girls?6

6)What does everyone do Options for teams include Pit Crew, Drive Team, chariman’s, Scrapbooking and Programming. All members do Fundraising.

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) 6 weeks… each part is different

  2. Do you prototype first?yes

  3. How many people design things?8

  4. How many people build things?10

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?6

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students? Yes some Engineers, Teachers and Students

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years) 2

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? A couple of weeks

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

Everything

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

We have a Frying Pan on our robot which is pretty cool. It is used to pick up the 2x ball like a suction cup.

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? A few weeks

  2. What does your autonomous do? Can just go Straight, Go Straight and turn or follow line

Other information
Speed (fps) not sure top speed in high gear is near 20 MPH

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest) 8

Agility (1-10) 8

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? yes, our alliance partners hurt us in the qualification rounds… but during the elimination rounds we couldn’t have had a better alliance. Since we won. But its all good, sometimes you have good luck and sometimes you have bad luck its just the luck of the draw.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? Probaly, because we flipped over a couple of times when we shouldn’t have, and had a couple of mechanical failures but we fixed most of our problems.

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) We won the Regional and we won the Sportsmanship Award. We also won a couple team awards.

Personal Info

What is your name? Nate Edwards

Age? 17

How long have you been on the team? 3 years

What was your role on the team? Chair #2(Vice President), Drive Team Practice Supervisor, Scarpbooker, Programming Team Captian, Fundraising machine, Sponsor, Lego League Mentor…

5

1)Team Name_______Team Paragon________________________

2)Team Number___________571_____________

3)How many people on the team?about 30_________

4)How many guys?10__________

5)How Many girls?20___

6)What does everyone do_______its very diversified______

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) ____our design evolves as the robot is built. we usually spend a day or two deciding what we want to do (which is invariably everything), and then the rest of the week arguing about how to do it.

  2. Do you prototype first?yes, always___

  3. How many people design things?_____the robot concept is probably done mostly by about 4 or 5 people

  4. How many people build things?7 or 8______________

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?____i put in 5 during the week, and 10 - 15 on weekends.

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?

__we have both professional engineers and some extremely talented parents

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)____ 4 years ___________________________

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?2 days________________

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

we did everything at first, but later had to take off the winch for the bar because of mechanical problems. now we vaccuum up little balls and grab the 2x_______________________

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

_____ our 2 speed, 2 motor transmissions are pretty cool (synchromesh). and from what i’m told, we have one of the most effective small ball suckers in the entire program.______________

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?_______ 1 day, and it never worked very well. that will change by nationals, however. _____________________

  2. What does your autonomous do?______ absolutely nothing _________________________________________

Other information
Speed (fps)
after increasing the gear ration
6 fps in low 12 fps in high

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)
10. our robot has multiple break away joints in all critical components. our robot will not break, it will simply bend

Agility (1-10)
10 six wheel drive lets us spin on a dime

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? yes. our partners have the annoying tendencies to either a) not move at all, b)get disabled 10 seconds into a match, or c) be so horrible that the only thing they are good at is getting in our way. i realize that not every time has the ability to make an outstanding robot, and everyone has a match or two with an inferior partner, but we seem to have an inordinately large number of matches with them. This was more true at our NJ regional than it was at UTC.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?
in NJ we broke down a lot, but at UTC we never let our teammates down

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) 2nd place at UTC.

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)
we won the regional (UTC)

Personal Info

What is your name?
Jacob Trueb

Age?
18

How long have you been on the team?
4 years

What was your role on the team?
primary driver, primary student build lead

If its possible can you send your replies to my e-mail
[email protected]

Thank you for your cooperation

6

1)Team Name__________________ComBBAT_____________

2)Team Number_______________21_____________

3)How many people on the team?30ish_____________

4)How many guys?25ish__

5)How Many girls?___5ish

6)What does everyone do? Design, Build, Animation, Chairman’s Award, Website

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) First 2 weeks but aside for the main components, then kind’ve an as-you-go thing

  2. Do you prototype first?Yes________________

  3. How many people design things?All (Seperate groups, and complete group meetings)_________________

  4. How many people build things?12-15__________

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?3/day during week, 7 hours on Saturdays_________

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?
    One engineer for the team

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)First year this year__

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?With all our troubles, the matches__________

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?
    One thing as a main goal, and other items secondary

  4. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.
    System to catch balls as they fall, however with the balls this year… it’s very hard to release them

  5. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?A little bit of time, but not much due to design issues______

  6. What does your autonomous do?Setup to catch balls_________________

Other information
Speed (fps) 6?

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest) 4

Agility (1-10) 4

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? Depends on the match, it’s all random

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? With ball releasing and maneuverability, definitly

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) Low

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) N/A

Personal Info

What is your name? Mike Walker

Age? 17

How long have you been on the team? 3 years

What was your role on the team? Design, Build, Website

7

1)Team Name: Binary Bulldogs

2)Team Number: 1110

3)How many people on the team? 17

4)How many guys? 14

5)How Many girls? 3

6)What does everyone do: Mostly mechanical, promotional, programming, website

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) Too long

  2. Do you prototype first? No

  3. How many people design things? ~7

  4. How many people build things? 10

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? 5

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?

We have many dedicated engineers from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years) 0

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? 0

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

One specific task

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

Ball corrall hollowed out underneath robot

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? .5 hrs

  2. What does your autonomous do?

Drives to center of field preparing to collect small balls

Other information
Speed (fps)

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)

5

Agility (1-10)

5

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way?

Not at all, all of our alliance partners did roughly all of the gruntwork with the robot

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?

Drive problems

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)

28

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)

No

Personal Info

What is your name? Joshua May

Age? 16

How long have you been on the team? 2 years

What was your role on the team? President, Animator, Programmer, Webmaster

8

1)Team Name Sie-H20-Bots (See-Hoe-Bots)
2)Team Number 237

3)How many people on the team? ~40 - ~20 Students ~20 Adults - more or less

4)How many guys? Probably about 25 (HS Students and Adults)
5)How Many girls? Probably about 15 (HS Students and Adults)
6)What does everyone do- Everybody fundraises and then everyone is on different sub teams as well. IE: Mechanical, Electrical, etc.

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) 1 or 2 days at the most - But that is only after 2 days of intense learning of the game inside and out and figuring out what we want to do to be competitive in the said game.
    Function over form!:cool:

  2. Do you prototype first? To some extent. We use some prototyping to decide on what system we want to do. IE: Arms for grabbing balls, Chassis type - More function over form.

  3. How many people design things? about 5 maybe, it depends.

  4. How many people build things? Everyone on the mechanical team, so about 10

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? We meet oficially 4 hours each weekday during the build season, and some use more, some use less time cause of other commitments

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students? Engineers, Machinists, Parents, Teachers and other supporters

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years) 1 great year. Both drivers were rookies in the 2004 season, and we did great this year.

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? As much as we could, almost a full week before shipping (thanks to the extended deadline this year), and of course all the practice time and matches during robotic events.

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?
    One specific task extrodinarily.

  4. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.
    We Climb the steps with 6 wheel drive and 2 speed tranny and hang on the bar and defend with our unique shimmy device that allowed us to transvers across the bar and defend it.
    We had other back-up systems, but because of weight issues, we left them off.

  5. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? The first week or so of building deciding what we wanted to do in autonomous. about 2 days before shipping testing it with the robot and all 6 weeks developing and learning the language structure.

  6. What does your autonomous do? It was supposed to knock off the ball from the tee if we wanted, but we ony got that to work sucessfully a couple times during competition, so we changed it to just line up to the platform for our drivers to climb it in driver control mode.
    It is all dead-reckoning based BTW.

Other information
Speed (fps) 13fps in high, 4fps in low 2 speed gearbox borrowed and modified a little bit from Team 116

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)
9 - We had no major system problems this year… A first for us!! Yay!! But were prone to tipping in the beginning, but we fixed that… (I hope)

Agility (1-10)
7 - We can push pretty hard in low, and make good speed in high, but we can’t turn on a dime cause of our chassis design, but oh well…

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way?
Once in a while, but that always happens, it’s the luck of the draw in a random alliance pairing.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?
Probably, we can’t always anticipate every move, but we did pretty good none-the-less.

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) NJ regional - 1st with an undefeated record
CT/UTC Regional - 6th place Nationals - 11th place, but got bumped to 8th and was an alliance captain in the finals and made it to the semi’s! w00t!
Beantown Blitz - 30 out of 33… Ouch…:frowning: :eek:

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) 2004 - NJ Regional - GM Industrial Design Award and Regional winner and a MOE team award for Gracious Professionalism, An award for an extraordinary gadget from RAGE Robotics Team 173. - CT/UTC Regional: Motorola Quality Award - Nationals: Team award from The Martians team 494
As for the other years, we have won other awards, but I’ll leave those out, cause I’m guessing you just mean this year.

Personal Info

What is your name? Elgin Clock

Age? 24

How long have you been on the team? Since 2001 - Got involved through a college CAD class, and thought it was a one day meeting. Turns out it was the first day of the 6 weeks and I stayed for all 6 weeks and beyond… lol

What is your role on the team? CAD Drafter/ Web Team Helper/ and other misc. stuff.

9

1)Team Name_Double Deuce

2)Team Number_22

3)How many people on the team?_~40

4)How many guys?_~35

5)How Many girls?_~5

6)What does everyone do_Design, Build, PR, Website, Field Construction.

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) _7 days

  2. Do you prototype first?_No

  3. How many people design things?_~5

  4. How many people build things?_~5

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?_ Some people put in a large number of hours, like me, but some others don’t put in many.

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?

_Yes, we get professional engineers

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)_Driver:1; Operator:0

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?_Just during the competetion

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?_We try to design to design for one thing but we might get carried away.

  4. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it._We have a very nice drive system. It is a 2-speed-6-wheeled-4 motor drive system. We use the Drills and the Cims/Atwoods/Chips.

  5. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?_A good amount because out programmer taught himself C so it took a while.

  6. What does your autonomous do?_We go out and grab our moveable goal and bring it under the ball drop.

Other information
Speed (fps)_High:12f/s;Low:4f/s

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)_10

Agility (1-10)-8

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way?_Yes becuase we are usually paired with rookie teams.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?_Not that I know

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)_SoCal:20;Canada:?;Atlanta:13

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) Judges Award and Finalists.

Personal Info

What is your name? Ali Ahmed

Age? 16

How long have you been on the team? 3

What was your role on the team? Coach during competetion and design and build during build season.

10

Team Name: Woburn Robotics.

Team Number: 188.

Number of people: 19 (29 with graduate and teacher mentors).

Male: 10; note I am the only grade 12 male on the team, (or Senior as you Americans like to say)

Female: 9.

What everyone does: This could answer that. It’s what everyone officially does, though there’s a lot of crossing over.

Time to design various things on robot: About two days per function, but this is involved with prototyping; once we decide what to do, design is prototyping.

Prototyping: Heck yeah. Very little CAD either.

People who design things: A very small minority, should be bigger.
**
People who build things**: Often the same minority, with one or two who can be instucted to do things. This should be much bigger, at least 12.

Hours per day people put in toward the robot: On average 2, but this ranges from about 1 hour to 6 hours. Note that people might be around or working on something different and not count toward this number.

Mentor makeup: On occasion we get some drop-ins from helpful engineers, but it’s mainly teacher mentors, graduates, and students.

Driver experience: As driver this year, I already could drive a robot well and practised a bit on an old one in build. I’ve also been (the best) human player before so the whole drive team aura wasn’t new. The operator didn’t have any experience but didn’t really need much.

Experience on the robot: Barely any going into Pittsburgh because of delays; we try to have three to five days of solid driving (which never happened this year), but next year we will choose a drive team very early and have them practice whether or not the robot’s done.

Design methodology: Generally we try to design one specific function really well and work off of that strength. This year we made an everythingbot, and it paid off (you’d think we’d win a regional).

Coolness on robot: I got your coolness right here.

Work on auto mode: A whole lot of work was done in this area and a lot of learning. Our insanely sophisticated guidance system didn’t work because (among other things) the IR beacon was weak.

Autonomous: We use dead reckoning/timing to get around now. A few very simple programs.

Speed: 17fps

** Robustness**: 8 (5 is average)
**
Agility**: 7 (5 is average)

** During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way?**
Yes (“OMG!!!11one,” says the typically goodie forumgoer, “that’s not GP!”), but we’re guilty of it too, as are you, as are you. Nobody is angry because that’s how it goes. I can just see people reading into this statement too much.

** Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?**
In at least three matches I can think of right now, one of which we won. Three matches is good in anyone’s book I think. By the way, mechanical failure counts as letting down in my eyes, in addition to drive team error.

** Where were you seeded before the finals round started?**
Top 8 in Archimedes and Canadian, but not so good in Pittsburgh.

** Did you win any awards during the competition? **
Yeah.
*Sportsmanship, two individual awards for mentors (WFA, VOY), and Website Design at the Canadian Regional.
*Website Design at Pittsburgh.
*Website Design at Championships (booyeah).

What is your name?
Jonathan Lall

** Age?**
17

** How long have you been on the team?**
3 years, and counting.

** What was your role on the team? **
This year I was President, Driver, and Webmaster. The Franchise. :slight_smile:
“Jonathan Lall is the Chosen One; the prodigal brother who will bring balance to Woburn Robotics.” -former team member in my first year.

11

1)Team Name__Robobees___________________________

2)Team Number__836__________________________

3)How many people on the team?_**50,35 students 13-15 mentors **

4)How many guys?43________________________

5)How Many girls?____7_______________________

6)What does everyone do_The team is divided into sub teams, electronics, drivetrain, arm and end, programing, animation, manufacturing, strategies, and public relations. _______________________________

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days)
    one week to two weeks

  2. Do you prototype first?__Yes____________________________

  3. How many people design things?___The whole team

  4. How many people build things?_Not everyone has a part in the building of the robot like public relations and animation they are very busy doing things in their specified area.

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?
    On a school night on the six week crunch we arrive at 5:30 and most everyone leaves around 8:30-9:00, but some stay after untill they are done with the project they started that night. On a weekend some of us get their around 8:00 am and don’t leave untill 9:00 or 10:00 pm

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?
    We have two teacher mentors who teach engineering and we have about 12 mentors that are all different types of engineers and work for many of our sponsers, we also have parents, for example my father is an electronics tech and usuallly comes and helps out whenever he can.

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)
    Robot controll 2 years, Arm controll 1 year

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?
    We practiced before we got the new game with the years past robots, one was 2 wheel drive and the other 4 wheel drive and had tryouts for rookies.
    we practiced alot.

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?
    What ever the team decides the task should be we design to but if we get some ideas to improve we improve.

  4. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

Every year we have had a solid aluminum drive plate and we have yet to see another team use one, also our electronics board is mounted upside down. we also have some custom made pulleys made from PVC pipe and viynal siding.

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?
    Even before the game was released we were working on an auto program.

  2. What does your autonomous do?
    Line track and dead reckon at the small mobile goal so we can be in position to move and uncap it.

Other information
Speed (fps)
8-10 fps

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)
9 we didn’t break any thing just bent our plow in defense.
Agility (1-10)
7

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? Did you let your alliance partner down in any way?

Just about all the time, we would discuss a set game plan and our alliance would change thier minds at the last second and throw off the whole game plan, i know we have also said we could do something and fail as well and it happens, but it happens alot to us.

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) at atlanta 70th

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) Not this year

Personal Info

What is your name?
Brad C.
Age?
17
How long have you been on the team?
2 years and counting
What was your role on the team?
Team captain, Captain of the arm and end team,and strategies, i also drive the arms of the robot. I also train the rookies in how to drive the robot, i also give presentations to companies to try to get sponsership. i also demonstrate the robot to the parents on the final days.

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1)Team Name: Killer Bees

2)Team Number: 33

3)How many people on the team? 30

4)How many guys? 25

5)How Many girls? 5

6)What does everyone do? There are 3 groups, CAD, PR, and Build

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) We design it all throughout the build period, but the preliminary design work takes about a week.

  2. Do you prototype first? Yes

  3. How many people design things? There are 3 goups, each with an adult mentor that “guides” the students, but everyone has a say. This year the groups were chassis, Ball-O-Fier, and hanging arm (which never went on). Last year they were Chassis, Box Manipulator Claw, and Arm.

  4. How many people build things? Every student on the build team, which is about 20. Our robot is pretty much entirely student built.

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? Every team member is required to be at all meetings, which is about 16 hours per week. Some people like myself go more during crunch time.

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students? Engineers

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years) This year and all of the offseason events last year

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? 3 weeks for the chassis, a few days with most of the robot, no time with the actual competition configuration. Thereforem the driver had a lot of practice, the operator (me) had to figure it all out at the competition.

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?
    Last year we tried to do everything well and we weren’t so great, so this year we focused on ball handling and hanging. We were awesome at both, but we had to sacrafice the good hanging arm for something that was so-so. The other year we were REALLY good, 2001, we did one thing well, which was handling goals. Although we did everything in 2002 and won a regional. I guess it all depends on the game. I’ll stop, I’m rambling.

  4. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.
    4 speed automatic transmission that weighs about 2 pounds, pop down casters converting it to 2wd for turning on a dime, Stepping Chassis, Pop out ball ingestion system, it’s all special!

  5. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? We measured the wheel counts during build season and that’s it. All of the autonomous coding was done after shipping, and it all works. That’s all Jim (DaimlerChrysler programmer/engineer) and Kevin (prodigy) right there, they’re awesome

  6. What does your autonomous do? Knock down the first, second, or both balls then reverse or drive under the ball dump

Other information
Speed (fps) 12 in high, about 6 in low

Robustness (1-10) 9.5

Agility (1-10) 10 due to the pop down castors in the back making it 2wd.

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? Which competition? :wink:

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? At nationals I feel we did a bit, and at Detroit we definately did by having our drive fail.

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)
VCU: 4th
Detroit: 3rd
Canada: 17th?
Archimedes: 5th

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)
NASA/VCU Regional:
-Champions
-Xerox Creativity award
Detroit Regional:
-Leadership in Controls award
Canada Regional:
-Champions
-Driving tomorrow’s technology award
-Industrial Design award
National Championship:
-Driving tomorrow’s technology award

Personal Info

What is your name? Paul Huston

Age? 18

How long have you been on the team? this was my second year

What was your role on the team? Build: Ball-O-Fier team, pneumatics guy, and operator

That was fun!

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1)Team Name: d5robotics

2)Team Number 1293

3)How many people on the team? 30ish

4)How many guys? 27ish

5)How Many girls? 3

6)What does everyone do? Everything–this particular year, we weren’t too particularly organized, although we had more build-oriented people and fundraising-oriented people.

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) We usually haggle over it for a few hours, maybe over a day or two, before it hits.

  2. Do you prototype first? Not this year.

  3. How many people design things? I recall at least ten warm bodies designing this or that.

  4. How many people build things? Nearly everyone built something–more of the building fell onto about five or six folks.

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot? Two hours on a Tuesday night, plus all day saturday–about ten hours a week this year.

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students? We’ve got two.

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years) 0

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot? Functionally 0.

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily? One task extraordinarily–or so we thought.

  4. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it. If I was fond of one thing on our robot, it would be our numbers. The Thursday at Palmetto, our fundraising/artsy coach didn’t have the numbers that we’d done up all nice-like. So we did them in electrical tape. And it worked.

  5. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode? Enough to get it just shy of hitting the ball.

  6. What does your autonomous do? Get to the ten-point ball–whether it hits or not tends to be an issue of aim.

Other information
Speed (fps) Slow–like four to six. (We had window motors.)

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest) 11. We were taking some serious checks in the sides from other robots, and we didn’t have a ding.

Agility (1-10) 7. We couldn’t screech out of somewhere, but we could move.

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? Not that I saw.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? We rocked as hard as we could–there was little to nothing else we could’ve done during the regional.

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) 27/42

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) None.

Personal Info

What is your name? William Leverette

Age? 18, 17 during the season.

How long have you been on the team? 1 year

What was your role on the team? Miscellaneous student, fumble-through-the-dark scout, robot tackling dummy, occasional fabricator, and off-season pesterer.

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1)Team Name__roboraiders? something sucky like that. next year, our second year, we"ll get a better name that EVERYONE will agree to

2)Team Number___1481

3)How many people on the team?__8 including teacher/mentor

4)How many guys____8
5)How Many girls?___none. we hope for some next season… all guys is nice. all the freedom to do whatever, wear whatever, smell whatever… :eek: …but waaaay too much arguing
6)What does everyone do__________eat subways. go home. leave all the work to about 4 of us.

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days) ___all season.

  2. Do you prototype first?_____yes. my LEGO. somehow everyone agreed

  3. How many people design things?_____matters on how you count. i made a LEGO fully functioning robot. everyone agreed. so 1 or 8.

  4. How many people build things?_____4.the rest are here to destroy…

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?_____do people? or do i? me… a lot of hours…if you count being on CD for time,umm…maybe around 16 on weekends and breaks…maybe 8 on schooldays…23+on day before ship… some people… maybe 10hrs total for the season

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?

____________all students and one VERY helpful& motivating woods teacher

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)______none

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?_______3min…total

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

__________designed to do everything… went to regionals… did one single task
4) Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

_____________LOVE :yikes: and blood and sweat and tears and a lot of time and money.

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?_______our only programmer programmed it the day before the matches. (after our robot was shipped…and we didnt have a pracitce robot…) and our programmer is blind. which didnt speed things up at all…but, he was amazing…did everything we possibly could have hoped for.

  2. What does your autonomous do?_____block up one side of the 1st level&wait for small balls to drop so we could plow with our BIG claw.

Other information
Speed (fps) theoretically 8fps

Robustness (1-10) (10 being highest)9. weused jumprope instead of lexan on one place because we were over weight. it kinda gave sometimes. no problems otherwise.

Agility (1-10)1.3. we had 4wheels/2wheel drive with pop down casters… they weren’t very secure… and 12.5in pneumatic wheels on 4 corners isnt the best layout… especially if your wheelbase is longer than width… as ours was. we could turn, but barely

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? …once. we were promised a hang, but they didnt hang… we would have won if they did.

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? probably when our plow’s beaded jumprope snapped… we sprayed beads all over the field…and couldnt plow balls anymore…

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?) i dont remember… someplace not high up yet not last. :rolleyes:

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?)
Animation.
Personal Info

What is your name? Ryo Okuma

Age? 16

How long have you been on the team? from when it started…this year.

What was your role on the team?..captain…designer…lead builder…operator…head pit crew…head electrical…only pneumatic understander(?) and integrater… well, everything but the animation and programming

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Thanks for participating. As soon as possible I will set up a website with the results of my research. Forward this to your friends also, so that the sample population will be large enough and therefore more relevant to FIRST as a whole

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1)Team Name Dragonslayer

2)Team Number 538

3)How many people on the team? start with 50 and only 24 like robotics

4)How many guys? 16

5)How Many girls? 8

6)What does everyone do ?
Well, EVERYONE design, then we break into to teams electrial, mechical, inventor, web pages

Design Questions

  1. How long does it take to design various things on your robot (hours, days)
    design 3 days

  2. Do you prototype first? not really

  3. How many people design things? everyone as a say

  4. How many people build things? about 15

  5. How many hours a day do people put in towards the robot?
    6 to 5 hours

  6. Do you get professional engineers to help your team, or is it all teachers and students?
    equal toward both

Strategy Questions

  1. How much experience do your drivers have? (years)
    2

  2. How much experience did your drivers get with the robot?
    1 to 2 weeks

  3. Do you design to do everything well, or do you design to do one specific task extraordinarily?

very thing but pushing balls

  1. Do you have a very special thing on your robot, some cool design or whatnot? and If so what is it. Please describe it.

no but i dose look like a deer

  1. How much work did you put into the autonomous mode?
    not to much

  2. What does your autonomous do?
    drive to the moveable goal ad STOP

Other information
Speed (fps) not real sure

Robustness (1-10) 8

Agility (1-10) 10

During the competition, did you feel that your alliance partner let your team down in some way? yes

Did you let your alliance partner down in any way? a little bit

Where were you seeded before the finals round started (at the end of the qualification matches?)regionals 1 st and nationals :frowning: 47th

Did you win any awards during the competition (spirit, leadership in control, etc.?) judges award

Personal Info

What is your name? Julie

Age? 16

How long have you been on the team? 2 years

What was your role on the team? desgin and mechical