Wow, wow, wow. What an incredible match. Will have a link when they replay is up.
That was absolutely incredible
I’m happy to report that our robot, Frootsnak, getting shoved upside-down and (quite suddenly) battery-less :ahh: into the challenging position did not result in any major damage. The team members later described the events as “hilarious”.
The damage: The arm folding back kept the major components off the ground and may have assisted in the robot sliding. Many of our electronics mounted with Velcro (including the RoboRIO and PDP) detached and hung from their wires. The arm’s mounting brackets deformed enough to allow the right side bearing of the pivot shaft to pop out, leaving that side partially detached (the bearing are usually sandwiched between the mounting points and collars on the shaft and cannot move to pop out). The battery had been secured with both a strip of velcro across the bottom and a two-piece velcro strap across the top. The force of the impact was enough to snap the retaining strap and disengage the bottom velcro. The ejected battery was dragged for much of the journey, but one of the last bumps from 25 caused the Anderson Connector to disengage, leaving it on the field. Once fully detached, it was considered field debris, therefore our entire robot was considered to be in the challenging position. I can hardly believe that I’m saying our robot’s battery was Curie field debris!
Repairs were fortunately quick; consisting of reattaching the RoboRIO and PDP to their Velcro mounts, moving the arm’s right side bearing back into its mounting bracket and a full inspection of all electrical connections and mechanisms. The old top battery strap was removed and replaced with one about twice as wide with two bolts on each side which should prevent future battery ejection ::safety::. After a re-inspection, we were able to return to gameplay and did not miss any matches as a result.
A shout-out to Team 25, Raider Robotix, for getting us to where we should’ve been and for offering to help repair any damage said travel may have caused, though we were lucky enough to not have to take them up on said offer. These happenings have only served to make the team’s first time at the Championship all the more memorable.
Sorry if I’m missing something or if the grammar is off, it’s late and I need to sleep for tomorrow. See you there!
Edit: attaching a picture of immediately after the robot is hit for the first time; you can see the snapped battery strap flipping off the top of the robot.
A lot of crazy things went wrong and right in this match. I am super proud of our alliance, no body quit. Every point counted and the 3 of us walked away with 4 rp.
Easily the highlight of Curie’s quals. We were standing fieldside when this happened and everyone went nuts. Great job 25!
Wow, 25’s driver is amaze balls. I’m surprised that capture counted with the battery still hanging out.
Apparently the andersen connector was off, so it counted as field debris rather than an appendage 