This is just as bad as me forgetting to put the pin in to hold the trailer in place during “Lunacy”. Our robot took off at full speed and left the trailer sitting at the wall in front of there human player.
This year at competition someone who didn’t know a thing about the electronics board decided to plug the radio back in on the robot right before a match. Somehow they got it wrong. Luckily the FTA caught it and had us plug it back in. We don’t know who did it but next time they will know how to do it.
***Make sure everyone knows to point out something if they don’t think it is right but don’t try to fix it themselves. ***
I have had 10 competitions so far (including 3 regionals), and in each one we made a stupid that prevented us from playing in the first match (fortunately, in regionals it was always practice days). The usual mistake is getting on the field with a drained battery.
In our 2013 regional, we learned our lesson, and checked the battery five times before getting on the field. Unfortunately our laptop’s driver station software was not updated and we couldn’t connect to the FMS…
If you did do this, it will send about 46 volts to the router, thus ending its life.
Luckly for us it happen on our pratice bot with the older router.
I just remembered one more things from this year. At competition we missed all but our last practice match. When we went onto the field we found out that inspection also included re configuring your radio. We then went and re configured our radio and made it to the very last practice match of the day. We thought that we have forgotten something but we didn’t remember.
Last year, at the Chestnut Hill MAR district competition, the field crashed. The reason? As a sophomore (first year in FRC) in charge of the vision system, I was the only one who knew everything that was going on with the camera. The problem? Two (one to the cRIO, one to the driver station) 640x480 full-color, low compression camera streams, in conjunction with high bandwidth usage by other teams, crashed the field for an hour. Add on top of that that the image processing had used too much processing power at the previous competition, making our driver controls lag severely (I removed the guilty processing by Chestnut Hill, but forgot to remove the actual image retrieval, hence the two streams), and I had a pretty mistake-filled first year in FRC.
Router was fine. It was powered on for about 5 seconds before I grabbed the main breaker. DC-DC was destroyed, router went on to two regionals. :rolleyes:
This year (our rookie year) we failed to check all of our connections to the cRio and for TWO of our matches we had no communication with the robot because the cables were loose.
At Wisconsin this year, a newer member made some tweaks to the autonomous code, but didn’t have time to test them before our last practice match of the day. So the robot went on the field with the changes.
During Auto, the 1/2" ACME lead screw on our climber ran downwards, instead of up (It moves up to release some other mechanisms that are tied into it), and instead of moving a few inches and stopping, it keeps going.
The climbing mechanism itself can only move so far down before it hits another piece of the frame and stops. Well, the lead screw persuaded it to go a ways further :rolleyes:
So, after modifying a few 3/16 connecting brackets by about 30 degrees, bending the lead screw, and immobilizing the robot by giving the climber the impression that it should attempt to stab through the carpet, the CIM stalled. And kept on stalling for the rest of the match. I believe the CIM actually survived, but it was very, very hot when it made it back to the pit.
And that, kids, is what happens when you change a ‘+’, to a “-” :rolleyes:
One of the comical moments of STORM. 
During our rookie year, (i believe, I wasnt on the team yet), our frame consisted entirely of welded 1/2" steel square tube. Also we are from La Jolla (by the ocean), so the bot was rusted before the regional came around.
I recall a 2009 rookie who showed up at Los Angeles with a very nice steel tubing frame. Well, it was nice until it met the sizing box, which sent it to a grinder for shrinking, as it was a little bit too big.
It did eventually pass inspection.
Another team at the same event apparently didn’t do their unit conversions properly. Very good bumper attachment system, very much out of the allowed zone. Not sure how they reworked that one.
Last year our scouting team didn’t do anything because they didn’t think we would make it to elims. So when we found out we were the alliance captain for seed #8 we panicked and all of our team members decided it would be a good idea to use the OPR calculations I had been running all day. So our rep walked up there with a laptop in hand (Karthik made a Blackberry Playbook joke) running calculations. We later found out we had chosen 2 defensive bots to join our defensive bot :ahh: .
We didn’t stand a chance
Really? You mean at DC or Chesapeake…because that would have been very unfortunate. You guys were pretty good. Eats, shoots, and leaves!
As human player for 2537, I came within about 10 seconds of doing that exact thing. The guy was about to start counting down when I asked a ref if I could get back onto the field. Fortunately it was a practice match.
Don’t worry you’re not the only one, our human player last year forgot to place basketballs. During auto we were all waiting for the balls to shoot only to realize there weren’t any, we have not let him off that one yet.
And this is why you always scout in person and don’t use OPR. If anything, you can help another team decide their pick.
Rookie mistake on my old team’s part: In 2010, we (1002) had our entire frame elevated 1 foot off the ground. Picture here. Well, R19 that year said that robots had to be designed to prevent balls from going more than 3 inches into the robot’s frame perimeter… Inspectors weren’t thrilled with that, and our fix caused us to get so many penalties it wasn’t funny. Also, our driver made the mistake of ramming into a robot that was trying to hang that year.
In 2012, we were chasing technical problems for the entire CT Regional that would eventually be traced to a bad Digital Sidecar (ugh). On Saturday we hadn’t moved in any of our matches, and we had a really critical last match with 177, fighting for the #1 seed. We had our problem fixed… but we didn’t plug in the cluster of Andersons that wired our electronics board back into place. So we didn’t move, 177 lost the match, and I thought we were done.
It turns out, we did get picked, but I think a lot of teams assumed we intentionally sandbagged Saturday to do it. We didn’t, we were just stupid, I promise!
(Fun fact: If 177 seeded 1st, they would have most likely selected 118. 2168 would probably have picked 195 and then 2791, three robots without comm problems in the CT eliminations, possibly winning the regional. So leaving our Anderson connectors unplugged in that last qualifying match may have cost us a regional win.)
Silliest mistake ever: thinking 1/4" ground clearance in a game called “Lunacy” is OK.
Our biggest mistake(or blessing) was when our robot entirely tipped over at the Hub City tournament…but…the amazing part? Our drivers seemed to move the arm just right and the robot got right back up! here is the Youtube link http://youtu.be/EyCxActmHPs at 2:26 (#4499)…it was just amazing! The kids on my team were equally surprised…the judges asked them if they planned that in their design! 