Hello everybody!
In honor of our first year of making it to states, we would like to write down a list of struggles we had this year.
Super Important
Throughout the season we had a reoccurring trouble with our screws being loose. For important hardware we applied Loctite to assure that those screws will stay put. In our last competition, two of our Servos were especially loose. We put the Loctite on the main hub screws of our Servos. Overnight the Loctite dissolved the plastic in the Servo which damaged it. We were disappointed to find on competition day that both of our Servos were broken! Don’t put Loctite on any plastic components. We thank Team 9620 for the spare Servo.
Driving Practice
A HUGE reason why we did not do better in the first few competitions was driving practice. Our systems were too complicated to begin with, so we had to spend a majority of our time on our mechanism then driving. Only after our first two competitions did we have proper driving practice. Even today, we are at lack of driving practice. However, it has greatly improved. We recommend that all teams have a dedicated block of time to practice driving.
Size
At the championship they were a lot more strict in inspection than at our previous competitions. Robot size was the thing that really nailed our team. We had to go through countless inspections changing little things every time. We were not aware that the robot could not compress under the box. Our robot has 5 inch wheels which compressed under the box. A simple solution to this is to leave a 1/4 inch margin of error when prototyping the robot. If your team makes it far it will save a bundle of your time.
These are only a few suggestions! I bet you have advice as well.
Post some of your advice.
[RIGHT]Sincerly, Team 8888 [/RIGHT]