Power, Projects, and Bad Luck

FIRST General Forum
#1

We have the absolute worst luck ever.

First, about 2 weeks into the season a car ran into a power pole outside our school, effectively blowing up the transformer. no joke, the blast was loud enough to be heard inside the school. the driver wasnt injured. however, the power went out and we were dismissed from school early. we managed to continue working on the robot in the dark… minus power tools. eventually, the power came back on, much to our excitement.

more recently, this past week our teachers decided to assign the biggest projects all year during robotics season, and make them due this past monday. so, several prominant members of our team were stuck at home till the wee hours of the morning doing projects that took a back seat during robotics. unfortunately we had just began to gain real momentum and then we realized we had a english project, physics project, and 218 terms to define for history all due in two days. it was like the end of robotics season rush, minus the team enthusiasm and sense of accomplishment.

Yesterday, even more bad luck struck. Another transformer exploded down the street from our school. This time the force of the transformer exploding splintered the power pole in half. again, no one was hurt, thankfully. and once again, robotics production was plunged into darkness. The cruel irony is that our mentors sent us home because it didnt look like they were going to fix it until morning but after all the students left, the power came back on.

Today, a scheduled maintainace on the power transformers is supposed to happen this afternoon, directly in the middle of robotics. they plan for only an hour of darkness. nevertheless, our fingers are crossed.

i was wondering… does anyone else have unfortunate luck like this?

#2

I’d imagine every team has some share of bad luck–we’ve had our fair share of snow storms, power being cut, all kinds of bad things. My point–you’ll get through it, and looking back on it, you’ll laugh.

Do the best you can, and that’s all that anyone can ask from you!

#3

Two years ago the night before IRI we did the “smart” thing and packed up our trailer and left it in the building so we could be ready to go first thing in the morning… There was a big storm and it knocked down a power line behind the school so we couldn’t get the robot out. The emergency release on the main overhead door had not ever been used in its almost 30 year existence and wouldn’t function. It took us almost two hours to get out of the building.

So much for getting there early!

#4

Look at the weather reports for western, central, tughill plateau, and northern new york back from the beggining of robotics til now. I mean 9 feet of snow in about a weeks time is too bad, is it?

#5