What's the most interesting thing about your team that's not on the Internet... Yet?

FIRST General Forum
#45

In an attempt to move frisbees from our intake on the floor to our shooter on the top of the robot, we tried to spin them up a lexan helix. our ability to score points was tied to this helix which was a pivotal part of the whole design. And it never worked.

https://scontent-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/v/l/t1.0-9/539630_4458390854762_346720266_n.jpg?oh=9f0ed07f9b239cb40c70895e6eeb0188&oe=55E48873

At the end our our season we stripped the robot apart, took our big helix out to the sidewalk, and curb-stomped the life out of it. The word “helix” is now banned among team 3481.

I later made a board room suggestion meme to illustrate how we should have done things the first time:
https://scontent-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/1011962_420146801435231_522747594_n.jpg?oh=9c220b3043d29a072a8dd1cfdd6b9c8b&oe=55C5F116

#46

Even if it didn’t work, it looks pretty cool… how was it supposed to work, anyway?

#47

I was just a little freshman at the time, so I wasn’t majorly involved in the design, but basically we would extend our intake (I think we call it a power head) which starts vertical via pneumatic cylinders. We run the rollers as we drive over the disks, and they get sucked in through an opening in the front of the frame. Then a series of “insert magic here” rollers push the disks into the bottom opening of the helix where there is a vertical rotating spindle with brushes in the center that spin the disks up the helix which are then deposited in our custom high tech Home Depot bucket hopper.

I’m sure that had we had more time to test and develop it, would have worked well, but our time was very limited that year since our sheet metal sponsor was really slow in getting us our metal. It kind of costs us the season :frowning:

The fancy tall orange and blue structure in the back was supposed to be a lifting mechanism which we also had to throw out for time interests

#48

So this just happened: https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/605502501132095489/photo/1

#49

Mike Corsetto used to be tall. But then he decided he didn’t want to stoop to go under the truss last year, so he shrunk. He decided he liked being short for now (and apparently his fiancee likes it too–who knew???) (And I think he was trying to make me feel better because my son, themccannman, may have surpassed me.) Watch for modifications in the future… :wink:

#50

There is a Subway next to our build space(its no more that a 20 second walk). We go there so much that the team is on a first name business with the employs, and we have “Subway runs”. Witch involve several team members running to Subway for drinks, cookies, subs, or all of the above.

We fund a small portion of the team using script cards for Subway. We have even discussed funding the entire robot (not the whole team) on Subway script cards!!

#51

Robots and Subways…I’m flashing back to Lije and Daneel running the strips in Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel.

#52

We constantly argue over which mobile OS is the best. We use that to insult each other when we are poking for fun and/or angry at each other.

My avatar explains my stance on our debates.

I already had an frustrated outburst at competition saying…

“SHUT UP APPLE!” -
which frightened a family next to me when leaving the pits

Yep…Stuff gets weird sometimes on my team.

#53

we seem to build the best robot for the worst strategy…

#54

We forgot to name our practice robot this year…

We have a not particularly consistent tradition of naming our robots after shades of blue. (Hooloovoo, Cerulean, Willow, Azure, Mazarine) <-- some of these things are not like the others

#55

I was going to say that our teacher sponsor on Team 1339 can do a mean rap…
Then I realized that this is about things that aren’t on the internet.

#56

My team has high school teachers, quite a few electrical engineers, a few software engineers and even a machining expert as mentors but no professional mechanical engineers.
We seem to do fine though. :slight_smile:

We also have some taboo words:
“Water-Game”
“Swerve”
“Carbon Fiber”

The latter two were taken off the list after this year as the entire team came together and helped our mentors overcome their traumatic past :smiley:

#57

We have a thing for spoons.
(Be prepared for the surprise ice cream social)

2013- mechanical
2014-mechanical, design, human player
2015- mechanical, design, CAD, driver
2016- ???

#58

For most of the days of build season, 2169 would listen to an hour of Opera music and an hour or two of “Chicken on a Raft.”

#59

This is the first year that plywood was not part of our robot.

#60

We always have plywood on our robot… ::safety::

#61

We actively MAKE SURE there is plywood on our robot! Somewhere. Plywood was a material of choice for much of our early year so we now keep the tradition. Our most reliable robot we ever built was our 2012 robot and was at least 30% plywood by weight. It was so simple that it just worked every match. Being in the pits that year was awesome, queue for match, play match, bring to pit, change battery, break out the chairs and lounge, wait for pit scouts and judges. Good times plywood, good times.

#62

OK, my other post wasn’t really true, that Mike Corsetto is actually Chuck Norris in a poor disguise (trying to hide under his beanie). But what is really true is that our second longest termed mentor Devin Castellucci (RoboChair) in the last 2 years has spent much more time in other rookie teams pits at competitions than our pit. We’re afraid that he’s lost any allegiance to our team…:eek:

#63

At least 7 of our original students are still involved with the team as mentors.

And on the lighter side, we call FTC Team 4251 (Cougar Robotics) awkward potato puppies.

#64

We never put any kind of wood on our robots (bumpers aside). From inception to 11 years later, the robot has been wood free.