At Columbus (PCH District) we had one robot drop a roll of Duct Tape (I wish I had gotten a photo of that) that rolled around the field during the match.
At Dalton (PCH District) we had a robot toss a battery and another drop a pair of vise grips.
Here’s the most unusual piece of field debris I’ve ever seen. Skip to the 1:55 mark. Apparently the field breaking counts as field debris and not a field fault. This incident is the reason that FIRST changed from the old velcro gates to the current design. This incident also knocked our alliance out of elims… I’m not still bitter…
At the CHS - Northern Virginia event there was a team which kept dropping marbles onto the field. It was a very creative design (thrust bearing for plywood, effectively) but there was too much slop in the mating surfaces. So when the robot went over a defense, out would pop a marble or two, or three…
2014 Crossroads - Aerial Assist
A team had a baggie of lead shot that was being used as ballast inside a tube that was duct taped. The duct tape was punctured, causing the bag of lead shot to fall out onto the carpet and was ran over. Lead shot was literally everywhere on the carpet. The sound of a vacuum cleaner picking up 100s of lead shot is a very angry sound.
A pair of child’s safety glasses, from Pine Tree Regional 2013, though I also see a team button in that collection. Last year a robot popped a ball bearing. Those tiny things got everywhere and I was picking them up the rest of the day. This year it’s been the pins that hold the defenses in place, but I guess that doesn’t really count.
Looking at Ginger Power’s video, yeah, that could have been the same problem we had at Boston’s Northeastern competition – same gate corner too. Some parent from the audience was yelling at me – why didn’t I fix it? :ahh:
Most unusual: A large stuffed Duckie - No one claimed it so I carried it around to events for a few years until I finally lost it.
I regularly see screwdrivers, allen keys, wrenches, and all sorts of other tools that shouldn’t be left in a robot. Though the most painful to cleanup was when a team broke their turret and lost all 150+ ball bearings on the field.
I’ve found some interesting things over the years that make me go, “Eh, what?” or “How do you not know you are missing this?”
So far this year was a pressed bearing like comes from the outside of the live axles on the kit-bot, but with a neatly spun-off churro wedged inside it. The scary thing, other than that they were using churros for drive axles, is that I found 2 of them 15 or so matches apart. Each of the bearings had a partner VexPro 18t sprocket, complete with spun-off churro as well. No one ever claimed them from the parts box.
The time I remember most though is giving the same #25 master link twice to the same mentor. He couldn’t believe that I had found and picked it up twice from the field.
Not exactly field debris, but I did hear of a team going for elims reinspection being overweight… Turns out they had a roll of duct tape stuck to the bottom of their robot!
Easy, it wasn’t there during inspection. During maintenance a team member left the tool in the robot and forgot about it.
People would be surprised as to the number of tools that are found on the field at the end of a match, I would say it is on average 3-6 per competition, most of which go unclaimed. Normally they are screwdrivers, allen keys, and wrenches not crimpers, but the chain break was my favorite (that one was claimed by a very embarrassed student though)
I’m pretty sure they were referring to the other robot in the match (keep watching the video) that used duct tape a recycle bin and more duct tape and probably bailing wire.
At UMass Dartmouth we left tons of broken parts (and maybe broken dreams?) on the field, including shattered carbon fiber, pvc, and even a ski or two.
One thing that almost happened was we left the huge classmate computer charger in the robot to bring to the driver station, and we completely forgot about it until right before the match.
Yikes! I understand adding a extra function to your robot during competition, but that takes it to another level. Easily the sketchiest thing I have seen in FRC.
Edit: anyone else notice the roll of duct tape to the left of the robot? This match had more than a few issues.