We had our new robot out for a test drive yesterday, and the driver started moving the robot backwards down the hall at school, and I said “See if you can pull a Rockford Move”, and he replied “Rockford Move? What’s that?”,
So I needed to explain that there used to be a TV show called the Rockford Files … Rockford was a detective and he would escape the thugs by flooring it in reverse and then doing a 180 and taking off with the tires smoking …
So now my question…
When you are driving your robot can you successfully perform a Rockford move?
Since Team 95 almost always uses tank drive, they usually can do the Rockford move pretty well. I know the 2004 and 2005 bots could. I’ll have to have the students try to do it on the 2006 bot.
No smoking the tires is not a must, but it is a nice side effect
The move is to do a 180, starting backwards, and flipping from reverse to forward as the vehicle makes the turn…
some times you can pivot faster by pushing with the front wheels, while braking the back wheels. In a car you can do this if it is front wheel drive and you use the parking brake!
Yes, it is. There is another variant called a bootlegger turn.
When I was a kid, I had a friend who was the script supervisor on the Rockford Files and during the Summer, when I didn’t have anything else happening, I’d go out to the San Fernando Valley and watch them film the show. I’m not sure how widely known it is, but James Garner actually did his own stunt driving on the show. It was a lot of fun to watch.
if you have 4 wheel skid steering you can sometimes make the bot turn easier by going backwards, then full speed forward to get the front wheels off the ground, then turning
better have a bullet-proof drive train if you wanna try it!
and then there’s always the Team 190’s CrabGoat (2003) way…tilt the wedge all the way back and spin full speed! the front wheels lift off the ground entirely…
