Drive motors?

Thank you for that, its funny you mention humdinger 2. Matt was a big help when we were coming up with the first lolcano 3 years ago he sorta let slip his funding story and it was really amusing how dedicated he was. Apparently most of his bot was self funded, His grandmother left him money to buy a car and he used it to make humdinger 2. I didn't here it from matt himself but my team mate who had been talking with him for a while.

I met him at nat's in 2008..he was all alone and I felt bad for him....that was before they fought and he kicked everyone's butts...lol

Anyhow, he told me a bit about how Boeing helped out or whatever.....

In any case, he had plenty of driving expereince and was extremely dedicated.

So if you spend a lot of your time on the couch watching the tube or whatever and you end up losing to someone who lives it, eats it, dreams about it, etc. well that's sometimes how it goes.

Like anything else, the more effort you put into it, the more you'll probably get out of it.

he had told me it was between a car or a new humdinger but he never mentioned where the money came from.

There is no doubt in my mind he deserved to not only win that competition but the best driver award also

rjw wrote:

No shame in steeling....or should I say borrowing stuff from other bots that actually works.

It's actually a compliment to whoever built the other bot. Plus, most mistake are made in how it is executed.

Wow wow wow, how can you say that? It's one thing if you ask about advice on drive motors or something like that, but steeling/borrowing doesn't stimulate innovation and progress, and does the exact opposite of what this competition stands for.

I've seen many teams copy, and I mean exactly, what other teams have done, but the simple fact is that they didn't design it. They didn't put in the effort or time to come up with something original.
It's just disrespectful.

well...steeling a complete bot design is one thing....borrowing a few ideas is another.

In many cases (for example the shock bot clone) they actually missed the boat and didn't do such a good job at replicating.

true innovations are few and far between.

A few years back, I first saw a picture of Maximum Impact and I thought that it was fabulous.....after doing a lot of looking around, I realized that it was just mostly stuff borrowed from much older bots....

If the event is just about innovation, then they would just have teams submit designs , pictures, etc and hand out the awards.

Currently, the bots have to actually compete in combat.....so, while perhaps a spoon as a weapon could be considered innovative, it might not hold up against some of the current 12" diameter x 1" wide solid tool steel spinners.

If you look closely and analyze a bot such as Hummdinger......there's more there than what seems obvious and easy to copy. If I had a group of NEW kids that could accurately and effectively replicate that bot, I'd be impressed, in that they would have to have a very good understanding of a lot of physics and engineering concepts to be sucessful.

Would it be original...No but it would still have a lot of ecducational value.

Try cloning the space shuttle and see how any of us do....but it would be a heck of a learning experience

the borrowing thing is part of what this sport is about. We all share ideas and some implement them better than others.

look at the evolution of the tank (which is kind of close to a combat bot) they really haven't changed all that much...still on a track with a rotating turret.....lots of subtle innovations, mostly due to changes in technology, but still looks very similar to the oldest ones.

If you want a competition that forces or spawns a lot of innovation, then maybe FIRST is a better choice.

but then you don't get to DESTROY the opponent.......


jmo

I have to say that when designing a robot from scratch ( we have done it 3 times) you always look at what has been a winner and what has been a loser.

Then you pick out the points that are good and bad as far as those robots design. (There might be good designs in a losing bot) (There might be bad designs in a winning bot)

Then you look at the parts and materials that were used in what you have decided was a good design.

Then you match the good parts and materials to the good designs.

Then you look at sizing that might have been a deciding factor...

This is where your design process starts..... You have an idea of a good concept and chassis and you have an idea of what parts need to be used where and you have an idea of what materials can be used where..

Now you design a chassis that works with what materials and parts and how big things should be....

To say you stole an idea is not right but you looked at what works and what doesnt...

We have looked at Robots like Surgical Strike for our Robot Doomsday..... We looked at K2 for our Robot To the Roof.... We looked at Solaris and Jeremys Bots for others...

To say we stole anything is false but we used their research and fights to change ideas and materials and designs for what we built....

They look nothing alike and the materials were far different but we tried our own things...

Some worked and some didnt...

This is designing at it's best!

Although new concepts are always the way you start, somethings just dont make it past the Cadd Drawing.. Some Things make it to a final build...

Frisco

taking what has been done and tweaking it is the only way bots are going to get better

Senai how much influence did mini blender have on your bot? and the original blender?

Theres nothing wrong with it, but please just dont make an exact replica.

When we finally fought aftershock clone at the end i laughed, leaned over to alex and said "i'm pretty sure we never had a wheel fall off" lol

Oh no I agree completely. The way I read it, it sounded like you were advocating taking things from other teams and claiming them as their own. Research and design of different components are absolutely necessary, and it is impossible(unlikely) to start from scratch every year.

Perhaps I miss understood you. My mistake.

And as far as my TM goes, I always call it a "15 lb shrunken down version of The Blender, which was my high school's robot a few years back." I always make sure give the credit for the concept to the team that started it all and did such a great job with the design.
AAAAnd if you look at the two bots, mine should have been called "Blender Mini" cause it most resembles The Blender, but someone had already taken the name.

The modifications I made to TM were defiantly necessary but that goes to with what you guys were saying earlier. About looking at what works and what doesn't, and optimizing the design from there.

Again, I think I misunderstood what you were saying.