Now that Atlanta is done. I think it is time that we recognize the teams that had really cool robots. Any cool designs, out of the box thinking, just something that nobody else had. Even if their design didn’t get them to the finals or work perfectly 100% of the time.
Here are mine. (I was on Franklin so I didn’t get to see a lot of Edison bots)
Of course Power Surge needs to applauded. They had an amazing design. Their alliance with team 121 was pure bliss. I was devastated when they lost. Unfortunately, their robot was posted on the FTC blog, then copied by multiple teams. I guess imitation is the best form of flattery.
Burnin’ Rubber 2842 had a completely original design. It was the only robot I saw that was able to pick pucks out of the middle goal.
Sorry I forgot these team numbers, hopefully someone can correct them.
There was another team that I’m not sure the number but there bucket was mounted so it could rotate 360 degrees. If it were blocked it could rotate and score from any angle.
Another team that I forget the number but when they picked out the pucks the had a cay that picked up the rack from the outside and had a wrist like design that could rotate in all angles.
So this wasn’t in Atlanta, but there were a couple designs in Idaho that I thought were interesting. One team’s kit only came with two 12 volt motors for some reason, (something to do with them registering very late in the season) but they still made a robot capable or scoring in the circle. It worked by ramming the rack so that all the pucks fell into an aluminum trough, then ramming the goal just as fast in reverse to make the pucks fall into the circle. It didn’t do very well in competiton, but I thought they overcame their challenges very well.
They had a 120 tooth driving a 80 tooth driving a 40 tooth on each side (each motor powered 2 wheels) so the thing could really move, too.
One of the most creative designs I saw at worlds was Team 154’s robot. They created a robot-sized platform that they could lower onto the floor so their alliance partner could drive up onto it. It was one of the most creative ways of seeing a team get (others) off the floor that I saw all season.
The video doesn’t show pulling pucks out of the center, but we did that at World, descoring 2 pucks completely off the field, and flipping 2 more out of the triangle and into the circle.
I’m sorry. I must have written down the wrong team number… I’ll edit my original post.
You guys had a really cool robot, cant wait to see what you have next year!