Miami-Dade County Youth Fair video

We are waiting for a parent to give us video of the Rattler robots from Miami Lakes Educational Center (MLEC) getting beat on at the fair this year.

I managed to get this one from my little point and shoot. Rattler 1 goes airborne on its way to losing!!!

Rattler 1 vs Lucky Strike

Hope to have more Rattler vids soon

Where are everyone elses???

You should go weapon to weapon with large spinners like that
Not sure what weapon motor you guys use but i have to think its something running a decent RPM at the least, it looks like there running a turnigy outrunner

Cody Harris wrote:

You should go weapon to weapon with large spinners like that
Not sure what weapon motor you guys use but i have to think its something running a decent RPM at the least, it looks like there running a turnigy outrunner

They are runing an axi 4120.

Our rattlers can run either as drum/plow or atriculated wedge/ plow bots. Our drum spins too fast at the moment. In the video, Lucky strike was running on 1 wheel drive after the first coupls of hits, but our driver didn't take advantage of that and then made a pretty fatal mistake almost half way thru the fight.

we are in a learning/organizing phase at the moment

Darn lol from the picture on buildersdb it looked like a bigger turnigy lol, o well i tried haha
What weapon motor are you running and whats you estimated RPM, unless your running like 1:1 i have a heard time believeing its too fast haha
Just an idea for next time though, really dont be scared of huge weapons and going head to head with them

Cody Harris wrote:

Darn lol from the picture on buildersdb it looked like a bigger turnigy lol, o well i tried haha
What weapon motor are you running and whats you estimated RPM, unless your running like 1:1 i have a heard time believeing its too fast haha
Just an idea for next time though, really dont be scared of huge weapons and going head to head with them

it's an Align outrunner....it is somewhat unique, in that while it is an outrunner, it has a shell over the rotating can, so it can be supported at both ends. Also, a decent 6mm shaft and over 2hp.

Currently, the drum runs up over 16k. it has never been head on with another spinner, but the tooth/speed combo have more of a grinding effect in most cases against non spinning objects.

Being a symetrical/ invertable bot, and with the condition of the floors in many arenas (including 1 of 2 at last years nats), we couldn't get the drum up to speed quick enough when going over 1/4" high ridges.

We assumed that the floors would be reasonably smooth, but we were wrong!!

the 430xl im guessing?
That arena looked rather small from the videos was it a normal 10'x10'?

Cody Harris wrote:

the 430xl im guessing?
That arena looked rather small from the videos was it a normal 10'x10'?

600xl @18 volts

The drum setup on Rattler was somewhat of a last minute thought...we wanted to pack a punch and the 600 was all that we could find locally. The first day that the rattlers were ever driven was the first day of nat's lol

Arena was 10 x 10 , I believe...whaetver Starbot Bill has???

this is dethinator's video... :]

Who else has videos of the fair???

Come on and cough them up!

Finally we have some video of the rattlers at Youth Fair 2009.

Here they are doing the ground and pound






And here are the final 2 matches for the win !!

how come it seems like your doing all the work and research?! lol
How come none of the kids from your team have joined yet?

Most of our kids this year are new. Both drivers signed on just before youth fair. Last week was spring break and now they are all working on TSA projects, which is coming up soon.

Most don't even know that there is a forum here, but it'll all come together soon, we hope.

If you were at nat's last year, we had 20 kids crawling all over the bots. Some were tearing down the bots (god knows we suffered a lot of damage), others were rebuilding gearboxes, soldering motor wires, etc. It was quite the crew!!

I do contribute a fair bit of time...I need to stay ahead of them while I still can. when they research and come up with ideas, we like to have answers.

btw: any constructive criticism regarding the videos?

A rule we have up here that I like alot is that advisors arent allowed to touch bots, unless it is something like welding or the such. (sucks for me know tho ) It really helps students learn things when they do stuff themselves like you said.

My thoughts on the fights:
1 that arena still looks really tiny to me lol
2 theres your obvious be careful around walls and keep the flipper down haha
3 Your bots are very speedy and with beginer drivers its not exactly necessary, have you ever thought about turning down the speeds via the spektrum? Driving seems like it would be alot easier then thought, but once you get into a match you get nervous and start loseing thought haha id encourage your drivers to take there time, being aggresive gets points with the judges but so does strategy so you need to be smart (I wouldnt recomend alot of people around the driver telling him what to do, that just increased frustration for me atleast)
4 On your flipper, with your shaft in front of your wheels did you ever think about putting some kind of skids, even just flat head screws, under the front end caps to keep it from tipping forward when lifting?

You must bend the rules a bit...lol

at nat's last year i saw an adult playing with a weapon motor on one of your shock bots (but i won't tell)

1) The arena is very small 8x8

2) We couldn't hit water if we fell out of a boat...

3) Our bots are setup with dual rates, so they can drive them slower...you do lose power on low rates tho.

They actually got better as the day went on....kind of!

4) when the smoke clears a bit, they will be making some changes, including probably lower , fatter wheels (on the wedge), and some floor stops for both the wedge and drum as you noticed were missing(good eye). Also 6-4 armour (we need it!!)

If they stay with it, these 2 bots should be pretty tweaked by nat's next year....also, our drivers are with us for 3 years, so hopefully they'll get it right (or better)

Thanks for the feedback....

hahaha thats only up here
That was probably our teacher/only advisor last year playing with the axi we junked part of the way into the comp. or just one of the two dads that went touching stuff they shouldnt lol
Do they ever drive the bots outside of comps.?
We disconnect weapon motors and play in the halls
A good practice i think is bot hockey, make a couple nets and get a ball, your bots are obviously pretty solid so running into each other isnt going to do anything to them, the randomness of where the ball simulates a bot in a fight and helps with reaction while scoreing and ball control helps with controling the bot.
If you really wanna be careful doing this and even cheat a little bit take out shafts and drums/flippers, the pocket is a good place to carry the ball with

IMO, the kids need to put out their best effort ...beyond that, advisors could step in and lend a hand.

As a team develops. they take on more of the hands on stuff, until advisors are just along for the ride.

We need to have an advisors bracket...yeah....

bot hockey is a good idea! I just wish we had enough bots to do that lol

What we used to do for driving practice with X-Contamination was I brought in a really old Tycho RC car I'd had and have matches against it in a taped-off square on the floor. Since neither could really damage the other, we based it entirely on aggression & strategy (and how many times you accidentally left the borders of the 'arena'). Actually, one of the funnier things that happened around one of those matches was I accidentally drove X-Contamination down a flight of stairs, to no obvious effect on the robot .

Jeff L wrote:

What we used to do for driving practice with X-Contamination was I brought in a really old Tycho RC car I'd had and have matches against it in a taped-off square on the floor. Since neither could really damage the other, we based it entirely on aggression & strategy (and how many times you accidentally left the borders of the 'arena'). Actually, one of the funnier things that happened around one of those matches was I accidentally drove X-Contamination down a flight of stairs, to no obvious effect on the robot .

We jumped a three set multiple times with shockwave haha

rjw wrote:

IMO, the kids need to put out their best effort ...beyond that, advisors could step in and lend a hand.

As a team develops. they take on more of the hands on stuff, until advisors are just along for the ride.

We need to have an advisors bracket...yeah....

Theres this crazy thing called hobbyweights.
This is a program for the kids, so advisors building bots doesnt do anything, they need to lead the way and instruct the kids on ways to do things(the research your doing) but let them do it them selves.
I love everything about building bots, so it kills me not to be able to machine, build and test anymore, but i enjoy helping the current team and seeing what they can come up with.
Thats why i like the rule up here alot (advisors cant touch bots at the competition)and why it makes me so made when people say the we had our bots professionaly built or bought.
Id gladly have an advisor match with you

I was thinking more along the lines of you driving a bot that we would design and have built..(possibly built down here)

Otherwise...what weight class?

I can do a 12 or 15 lbs. eggbeater or drum with a 10 lbs. weapon and we could have a go at it???

Or something else...I have no bots personally, so it's wide open...what do you have (or have access to)

How would the kids feel about you borrowing SnS

probably never gonna actually happen so no point even planning

Cody Harris wrote:

probably never gonna actually happen so no point even planning

I will be working on trying to get a few advisors/teachers to have a go at it maybe next year.

Why should the kids have all the fun.

cause there supposed to be there bots

Cody Harris wrote:

cause there supposed to be there bots

So as an advisor, you will never drive one again in competition?