FIRST Robotics Report 5.1 - A Game of Inches

On a whim I looked back at my progress report for the last robot Team 5826 built.  January and February of 2020 as rumors of Covid started to radiate outward from Wuhan China.  Interestingly one of our coaches actually had to take a business trip to Taiwan at this point in time.

My posts have a similar sort of Quiet Desperation to them.  Major mechanisms did not work properly.  We were overweight and yet needed to add additional structural supports.  We were building something peculiar that would be unlike anything else in the competitive field.  In various fashion the problems we face in Build Season are always the same.  Oh, some years we also have most of the software kids disappear on a Band Trip for a week.  

But a few things are different.  We compete one week earlier.  That's not good.  But at least the challenges all teams face are equal.  The Duluth tournament features lots of small town teams.  Everyone is operating on the same calendar, has been hit by Covid, and by the failure of the usual system of passing off expertise from graduating seniors to wide eyed newbies.  Our policy of calling up talented 8th graders when we find them has had few glitches.....and has given us a core group of now sophomore leaders.

Saturday.

You start out by checking the numbers that would be really bad if they were wrong.  Max allowable height is under by a half inch.  We are allowed a perimeter of 120 inches.  And we have:

At least on weight we are looking good.  A max allowed of 125 and we are just under 90 with all the stuff on board.  That number will become important in a bit....

One of our last needed components is in hand.  A spring loaded bar catching hook.  Nice design by our CAD team.

We have started to clear out junk we now know we won't need.  There's a lot of it.  Some things are in the uncertain category and only going as far as my car.  There is a lot of rattling going on in the back when I drive down the highway.

Here's a nice housekeeping touch.  

Ah yes you wonder.  But does the robot work?  Well that's complicated.  The center of gravity is not exactly where we thought it would be so the angle of the various hooks and gizmos needs to be changed.  Right now we are a half inch off on the more difficult hook grab. We might actually have to add ballast to the back of the robot.  This is not without precedent, we had to do this in Year One.  That's one area where being underweight helps a lot.

One of the kids has been lobbying for a hefty 2000 cc air tank.  This plus a couple of smaller ones will give us plenty of lift.  I told him sure, if we can make weight.  Now it appears I have to let him go for it.  I really hope we don't have to bring back the monster 5000 cc tank from 2020, that was ridiculous.  But heavy, so there's that....

I won't lie this season has been tough on me.  I showed up early to get things organized.  The area we work in is used by an architecture/building class during the school day.  There are all these neat little house models done in CAD and laser cut.  I looked at them and had visions of Mecha-Robo-Godzilla stomping them all flat.