Mistakes

FIRST General Forum
#33

I guess anyone at Silicon Valley in 2006 may remember this- our robot was doing really well, got picked by the Cheesy Poofs, and then in one after-lunch match, one of our wires connected with the battery and our robot literally burst into flame. Already one person on our team was running to the robot with a fire extinguisher, but luckily fire went out before extinguisher was necessary. Phlebas the Informer/Transformer was nicknamed Smoky Bear (our team name is M-A Bears, nicknamed Ma Bears in 2006).

Lesson- always recheck wires before quarters, semis or finals, because that’s when Murphy’s law really kicks into gear.

Oh yea, speaking of Murphy’s Law, there was a time a mistake qualified as Epic Fail. Also in 2006, we were doing well at Cal Games when during the semis, every single ball bearing broke at the same time. We only found out when our robot began leaking little steel balls everywhere… and couldn’t move.

Lesson- make sure your sizes are right! The whole season, summer and qualifying matches the spacers on the bearings were too big and ground into the bearings every time we moved. The final crash was just too much for said bearings.

#34

Murphy’s law always kicks in at the worst times doesn’t it?

#35

IRI was a real bummer this year. You guys broke your front forks, got it fixed in a miraculous 5 minute period, only to go out and find that a PWM cable had come loose. This past year was one of your best robots ever, and its a shame that it had to go out like that.

#36

I’ll pass on the compliments, I don’t work with RUSH that much anymore. You know that whole thing where the kick you out of high school for having accumulated too many credits? Yeah had that happen after the 2007 season. Let me tell you though, having the team I work with now (397) partner with RUSH at Kettering was possibly the highlight of my years in FIRST.

Story time from 397 now though, we were testing autons. In every auton the feather raises right at the start, well, we got tired of putting it back down manually so we pulled the power to it. The mistake? We never plugged it back in. And as anyone who has seen our machine can tell you, if the feather doesnt come up our entire machine is useless because the forks cant deploy. Which meant we were pretty well screwed that match.

#37

a few years ago at the Denver regional (rack and roll challenge) we made semi finals but our chain keept poping off, and we had no idea why. Our robot couldn’t compete, and we may have won the regional if this had not have happened… later, after the competition, we found a very very small 20 gauge (maybe) wire stuck in the gear box that was causing our gearbox to screw up and dechain our robot. (i don’t even know how…?) It sucked… :

we learned that it was all electricals fault and that those jerks should keep their wires organized! lol. jk. the whole team learned the importance of being organized…

the sad part is that we still are not organized.

#38

Oh yeah, thats probably one of the most important parts of being in electrical, keeping it all organized and understandable.

That’s why this year I’m laying schematics before we start.

#39

ya, seriously, you electrical people need to keep all your junk from the moving parts, i’m so sick of stuff like that happening!
lol. just kidding. XD

every year we make a schematic and it looks nice, but then we keep adding wires, we forget something, like a sensor that we added at the last minute (which never did end up wordking. lol) or something…

#40

Our lead electronics head last year was playing around with one of the circuit boards and somehow bridged two wires together and like the wires went crazy red and then melted like half of the board. No really bad injuries thank goodness, just a little cut on the finger.

#41

and that’s why we have fuses.:smiley:

#42

fuses… why I hardly know the meaning of that word. lol. you mean a piece of tin foil crumpled up???

lol. :smiley:

#43

No pennies, they fit nicely in the 40A fuse block.

#44

mistakes- how about your Robocoach making a perfect run and knocking down both track balls - and then suddenly realizing we are the OTHER color?

oops!!

WC :cool:

#45

really? awesome!
although with resetting fuses, they never go bad and there is no need for pennies… lol

thats not a mistake, its called Gracious Professionalism.
ok, maybe it is a mistake. I just wanted to use my vocabulary. lol :smiley:

#46

One time, when Brein was running the autonomous in our barn, he was trying to get the ball on the right side of the overhang in front of the red alliance. The autonomous started, all was going well. He then turned toward the right wall, and came a little too close to the wall and the side of the bot got caught on the wall, lifted the front and middle 4 wheels off the ground and completely bent the wall. :eek:
He then bent the wall back, and checked all the systems. All was good, so we tried to run the autonomous again. The robot started off, he turned it again towards the outside wall, and proceeded to lift the bot off the ground yet again. Bent the wall the same exact way he did before. :yikes: Once again, all was good, somehow.

#47

wait, a barn?

is that just the place where you test your robot or do you build it there too?

my team uses the student center in our school for testing. We use to test in the halls but the janitors told us we couldn’t do it there anymore because we kept putting holes in the drywall and chipping the corners of the bricks. :smiley: that was back when our driver was new. lol. well even when our driver was experienced it happened… XD

#48

to call it a barn would be modest- it is a complete field in a robot wonderland

(jealous!)

WC

#49

Not as bad as making that same mistake but during regular match play, and that being the last match at nationals which we needed to win to finish in the top 20 and hoping for an alliance pick.

#50

I, for one, am perfect and therefore make no mistakes. Unless you count all the times that I completely screw up.

Seriously though, In ‘Aim high’ my team was a rookie. I was in charge of rules and had only read the “important” parts. Apparently, the parts you make the bot out of was an important part. Oops. We used illegal motors and had to completely redesign our robot at the event. Still had fun, but I learned to at least skim through the whole manual…if you don’t have to actually read it.

#51

lol. ya. totally jealous. actually I kind of am… our student center is small for practicing… how ever, we could always do loops in the bus loops. lol.

of course we don’t count that… why would we?
Can I steal that form you? that is really funny.

#52