Hi all. Regional competitions are finally over!!! It’s time to relax, for two weeks or so, before the Championship Event!!! I hope everyone had a great time at their regional, because I had a blast at the two California regional competition, watching amazing robots and meeting interesting people…
Well anyway, back to topic. After watching all these weeks of competition, and saw changes on different machines, I started wondering what are teams doing to prep their robot for Nationals, especially with all the new ruling… With that in mind, here is the question of the week…
Questions 04/09/02: How are you modifying your robot for the Championship Event, and how do you feel about making all the changes?
There is debate amoung team members on wether to remove our ball scoop (which dosn’t work as well as planned)and put the teather and compressor on.
I’m not sure how serious we are about doing that, but I think it would work better.
We’re changing our goal hooks so they latch instantly (instead of after a second or two). With our old hooks, once we latched, we never had to worry about losing a goal. However, we’ve lost goals numerous times at the beginning of the match during a collision before we had the goals completely latched. This shouldn’t be a problem at the Championship Event.
I think we’re going to break down and add a simple goal latch onto the back end of the machine. We’ve had great success without one, but it’ll be nice to have - even if we use it begrudgingly.
But, there are some advantages to being able to pull everything as well as push everything
For anyone that was in LA you might have seen us take a severe beating from team 368 in the last match of the finals (it was so worth it). So we have to rebuild our frame, and we are going to put a pnuematic bumper in so it doesn’t happen again. We are almost done with our go home device also.
From the email i just recieved from Andy B. it looks like we plan on making many mistakes…most to cut down our weight (we are right at 130).
Some changes include possibly making our gearboxes shift with pneumatics (wow…this may take some time :))
Many drive base lightening ideas to save more weight.
Misc. ball collector/basket changes to make things even bigger and greater…
Possibly adding an extension
Misc. power management ideas, like getting rid of Fisher Price motors on drive base (i dont like the idea…just cuz a “6 motor gearbox” is cooler than a “4 motor gearbox”…lol)
We really havent talked about some of this stuff as a team so i really dont know what will be changing…but i’m sure we will be changing something to make a better and more competitative robot:)
We will be trying out more wheels to explore the most traction we can get with our high gear ratio without stalling the motors. As it is we can hit almost anything and not blow a breaker.
Possible motor switchout and definately work on publicity and public relations. The more buttons and gizmo’s to bring home the merrier.
Also we want people to come and check out our “Blind Driver” System. Ever wonder what it feels like to drive a robot while you are blind folded with the robot sending you audio feedback??? Well step right up and take a try with ours down in Florida!
I thought you weren’t allowed to modify your robot except to make repairs…
Or did i misread the rules? ::shrugg:: my first year and all.
Hmmm… if you can make only minor changes (assuming the rules ban complete changes) then where is the line drawn?
As for my team’s robot, I’m not sure if we’ve decided on any changes, only repairs from serious collisions during the Rutgers Regional.
*Originally posted by GilaHumanPlayer *
**For anyone that was in LA you might have seen us take a severe beating from team 368 in the last match of the finals (it was so worth it). So we have to rebuild our frame, and we are going to put a pnuematic bumper in so it doesn’t happen again. We are almost done with our go home device also. **
Mmm yep! I was working feild reset at LA, and wound up with a piece of extrusion that was believed to be of Gila origin.
*Originally posted by Replic *
**I thought you weren’t allowed to modify your robot except to make repairs…
Or did i misread the rules? ::shrugg:: my first year and all.
Hmmm… if you can make only minor changes (assuming the rules ban complete changes) then where is the line drawn?
As for my team’s robot, I’m not sure if we’ve decided on any changes, only repairs from serious collisions during the Rutgers Regional. **
Sorry for the mis-leading question. When I ask this question of the week, I assume everyone knows I am talking about the 3~4 days teams are allowed to use after a regional competition to fabricate whatever new parts they want…
So when I ask “how are you modifying your robot”, I really meant what new parts are you making during that 3~4 days to add to your robot at National…
Under the rules, people could build a completely new gear box, arms, ball mechanisms, etc, during the given period if they want to. Which is why I am curious about how teams take advantage of that period to improve their robot…
Ah, thank you for lifting that cloud of ignorance from me.
Still, my answer hasn’t changed. Team 25 has no set decision for changes yet. I’m not certain though. I can never tell what’s going on through Mr. Cokeley’s head. He’s the teacher running the program, and it seems all he thinks about is FIRST. He probably would love to rebuild the robot, but we don’t have the time.
Any teams completely redoing their robot?
*Originally posted by Wetzel *
**There is debate amoung team members on wether to remove our ball scoop (which dosn’t work as well as planned)and put the teather and compressor on.
I’m not sure how serious we are about doing that, but I think it would work better. **
Just to clairify. We had built a teather during the 6-weeks, but it weighed 5 lbs and we weight 133lbs at check in, so we never used it. It drove nice on its own. Never drove it as an integrated subsystem.
Pretty much what we did was re-build our gear boxes. They kinda…er…broke at KSC (they actually used a drill bit to hold part of it together). Mainly the idea was to make it work just as well yet be much more durable. I assume they got it finished…did they?
*Originally posted by GilaHumanPlayer *
**For anyone that was in LA you might have seen us take a severe beating from team 368 in the last match of the finals (it was so worth it). So we have to rebuild our frame, and we are going to put a pnuematic bumper in so it doesn’t happen again. We are almost done with our go home device also. **
Ooops, sorry about that. I didn’t realize that your machine suffered damage and couldn’t see it from the stands.
As one of Team 368’s mentors, please accept our apologies about any damage that may have been sustained by your machine.
Please know that our operators do not intentionally try to damage our oponents. If memory serves me correctly, we were desperately trying to escape your teams clutches as your incredibly maneuverable machine pinned our robot and the goal we were towing to the rail. At this point your partner, Team 60 had beaten our alliance to the goals and as everyone knows, once Team 60 has both goals in the air, they are unstopable. The only chance of winning was to gain control of the last goal, collect balls and catapult them into the goal.
Unfortunately for us, your team was just too good and although we got one goal, you managed to pin us between the railing until our main breaker blew. It was a little disapointing to get stuck like that as we would have liked to go down in style collecting balls from the floor and tossing them in (We get a kick out of doing that! ).
Anyway, I’d just like to add that it was an honor for us to play against your alliance which I like to call the dream team (Team 64, 60 and 330!). Knowing that we tried our best against the top alliance at the regional made coming in second just fine (Were still Happy!).
Again, please accept our apologies. Perhaps some day we might end up playing on the same side with you.
Team 80 thank you very much for inviting us to join your alliance. We sure had a good time with you and team 399 as we all fought to get to the finals!
we are modifing our break on ur robot, instead of rubber comming down, we are having a metal brush (or what ever the hell you call it. the one we have is almost identical to the beasts (though we did not build it to counter them) I think once we have this deployed, either you wont be able to move us (which was hard enough to do before) or we will get disqualified for ripping up the carpet. (lol)
