Things you only do ONCE!

Technical Technical Discussion
1

I was just thinking about this while writing in another thread. This may prove to be just a thread to make people chuckle but it also may serve to remind teams about safety and best practices. So here goes a start for the list…

  1. Touch a soldering iron to see if it turned on.
  2. Carry a battery with one hand, and dropping it. (on your foot or on the ground)
  3. Put the red wire on the black battery terminal.
  4. Wire the radio to a normal 12 volt output on the PD.
  5. Use a crescent wrench as a hammer. (power on or off, you choose.)
  6. Hold a robot part in your hand while drilling. ( a variety of errors jump to mind)
  7. Put a practice battery on the robot. (actually happens more than you know)
  8. Build to last year’s dimensions because “they never change”.
  9. Use a dremmel tool to grind right next to your custom 3D printed part.
  10. Mount your bumpers upside down. (except teams 11, 111, 1111)
2
  1. Solder without safety glasses.
  2. Use a hand drill with long unbound hair.
3
  1. Leave male ends of PWM cables exposed.
4

Design the robot with Mechanum wheels.

5

15: Leave a wrench on the draw bar on the Bridgeport and turn it on
16: Touch a freshly welded part
17: Touch a rough edge on carbon fiber

6

We’ve done it twice.

7

Do the trig for your autonomous mode during opening ceremonies and run the code untested in your first match.

8
  1. Drill something without covering the electronics.
  2. Put a popped of chain back on without cutting the power.
  3. Spray paint a part outside in 20 degree weather.
  4. stand in front of the robot while testing the shooter.
9
  1. Stick your fingers into one of the big muffin fans accidentally.
  2. Stand in front of a robot wearing a green shirt when the robot vision is set to look for a green target
  3. Do a poor job tying down your fastener containers in your trailer on the way to IRI.
  4. Put your finger on top of a piece of metal in front of the blade while cutting with a bandsaw.
  5. Try to hold a piece of metal square into the sanding disk on a table sander
  6. Forget to take the chuck out of a drill press with a plate-glass window behind it.
  7. Grab a constant force spring and yank it off its top roller.
10

Leave the key in the lathe chuck. Whatever you do don’t do this.

11
  1. Push a team into the pyramid when they are lining up to climb.
12

Although it is funny to watch people jump after doing this when reaching in the robot.

13
  1. Leave a chuck key in a lathe and turn it on.
  2. Put 3 bolts between the sprocket and a Performance wheel, even though there is a very good reason why there are 6 holes.
  3. Use a double sided intake for a ball game.
  4. A week 1 regional.
14

Team 1684, The Chimeras, did this last year and it greatly increased our versatility. We were constantly happy to have it.

15
  1. Test your robot not on blocks when you have a “joystick” with a Y axis that’s stuck at -1.
  2. Leave your hand on a pinch point while someone’s testing the robot. (Sorry Josh)
  3. Spray paint an entire crate on a just cleaned concrete floor. Without newspaper.
  4. Stand directly behind a spinning shooter wheel with a “temporary” tread on it.
  5. Cut off zip ties with a knife with the blade up.
16
  1. Live
17
  1. Forget to tell the robot to stop in autonomous.
  2. Stay up until 1am Thursday night in the hotel room coding autonomous.
18

And teams 1, 8, 88, 69, 96, 101, 609, 619, 689, 808, 818, 888, 906, 916, 986, 1001, 1691, 1881, and 1961. Any more I have forgotten?

This. After 2012, never again for us.

19

My team did a double sided intake too. It was a neat little feature, but totally not worth the space it takes up (and how much fun electronic placement gets), considering how easy it is to turn around.

20
  1. Forget to search for a prior thread of the same topic.
  2. Call the “Championships” the “Nationals”.
  3. Forget to have a blast doing FRC!