Whos Mr.P?

I didn't even know about moto until I heard a few teams were taking like 10 robots....
Quality over quantity is what I'd like to say, but we're lacking on overall enthusiasm at our school..
Oh well. I'm happy if we improve on last year.

brandon, I am hoping yours is ready for BOTSIQ this year. no one is going this year to moto. The one that goes next year to moto will be the most proven one. You could always go next year as a college student.

Clairton's 3 man, 1 jungle foot army

its matt and brandon. who is the 3rd person? Also who is jungle foot?

I have been there and done that...

A word of advice.....

STAY WITH ONE BOT PER YEAR !!!!!!!

This will be my last year of building multiple bots....

I wanted to get to the point of having several to work on with first year kids and having them assemble and fix then reassemble and drive and compete to get experience...

Then they can have a spring competition for the best new bot design for a single fall bot build....

I might even drop out from West Mifflin Next Year...

I have a bigger plan for the future that includes kids from all of Western PA ALL ages and all bot classes...

Something like 8-12 Year Olds building a 3 Lb bot..... 13-18 Year Olds building a 12 Lb bot...... College Kids building 1 12Lb and 30Lb bot and an Open build for anyone building whatever class they want to compete in...

I guess you can call it a Co-Op meeting twice a month for an evening year round building robots o compete in battles all over...

I got a little pissed when they would not let my son compete for the third year in a row here locally even though the rules state any club or youth organization can compete.

that was very cold jungle foot, very cold...true...but cold

who is jungle foot?

I am glad to hear that you guys are doing everything in house..

We have been like that from the beginning and it is 3 times the mount of work....

BUT... they learn 5 times as much by doing it that way and they have more ownership when things go good and bad with the bot...

I wish it was mandatory that it was done like this...

some childish teacher at our school who helps with the robotics program

Eh.
I just wish more people new about robot building.
I mean we built a robot our first year and didn't put near as much work into it as other teams did, but we got on the front page of a newspaper. It isn't like these competitions haven't been going on for years.

Jesus, our only hope is to teach the crazy kid how to build a robot, and hope he doesn't use it to rob a bank

Look for a steel city robot group this summer in the emails.....

Trying to get CMU and CAL incorporated within it.....

I have had more than 20 calls about groups wanting me to train and work with their groups for the LEGO and VEX stuff but my heart just is not with those competitions...

I believe that there is more learning and incorporation with the battles...

Something that resembles the WWF following... More kids like that stuff than anything else...

Me and Pete Smith are trying to get something going with autonomous battles...

"the smart sport gets even smarter"

May be far fetched but i think it can be done

we have to send out for lathe work for the weapon. Until we get a tig welder, all welding goes out. everything else is in house. I am in the process of learning to make battery packs. The other adsivor is learning CAD. So us as adsivors are learning just as much. Its nice to see students learn to run the mill. The more they do on their own the better the robot turns out. My biggest complaint is the students that ask me a question I have no idea. I answer it with the best of my resources and then then say ok, but if it fails its your fault.

Bull Milarky....

Our first bot was built with a drill press, bandsaw and belt sander.... That is the truth believe it or not...

Our second year we did manual milling and turning....

Our third year much of the same...

This will be the first year we use CNC...

beard will never learn CAD Mr.P, me and Jesus are good enough to Google Sketch up

I know some people who have done lego robot competitions as well as robot engineering competitions to build robots that can accomplish set tasks and such, but to me that type of thing not only has less appeal, but requires a more unique individual to appreciate it.
Robot fighting definitely has the most mass appeal and I think it always will.

after xmas break beard will school you in cad. Microsoft paint is not a cad program. you have to understand the better the program is the more problems can be sorted out earlier. Right now tyler is the best at CAD.

I still do not know everything there is to know...

I wish this forum was up and running 3 years ago...

I think I have learned more from here than anywhere...

I still have questions about which motor which Speed controller...

Which Material to use....

How thin we can go....

The best bet is to learn from failures,
Push the envelope,
Always build something original,
test before not after,
LEARN TO DRIVE EARLY,
Never blame someone else when you could have done it yourself instead of relying on someone else to provide you with the information,
Spend the time to research and ask questions about a product,
ETC.ETC.ETC.

I also wish the RioBotz Tutorial was available 3 years ago.

i have learned some much from people in the RC car forums. The whole electrical systems with mAH, volts, and the amps. What a huge advantage to have a system that runs properly with what is needed. There is a huge waste in this aspect and this is where I am doing my personal hobby learning. It seems to be the tedious boring part but I am enjoying it.

Good Luck Guys...

If you have any questions or run into any problems give me a call on my cell..

I have it on 24 hours a day..

412-691-1434

If you guys want to tag along out to Moto we are leaving Saturday morning (EARLY), Staying over Sat night and coming home Sunday Afternoon..

You are more than welcome....

We might even need a few drivers after I flip out on some of my kids during the next 7 weeks worth of building.

Alex, When are you guys heading out?

It's 10:30 PM and yes I am Now going Christmas Shopping... There is no way I was fighting with the lines all day...

Thank goodness for Gift cards and WalMart..

Take er easy!

FRISCO OUT!

please do not ever say tyler is best in anything. he sat there for 2 weeks with beard making that whatever u want to call it. and it still wasnt that great. there were no textures or anything. just simple lines

If starting from scratch and with limited or no knowledge/experience, the safest bet is to just build 1 robust robot.

Start by borrowing from a design such as Apollyon and build a 2 wheel drive wedge, clad with steel and protected wheels.

Slap some Colsons onto 36mm gboxes, 16 to 20 ratio, supported shafts, 540 or 550 cheap motors on 5S bat pack and get a LOT of driving practice in before an event.

You can't really go wrong and you can be more than VERY COMPETITIVE.

It is fairly easy to make changes/improvements to a fairly simple wedge bot.

Trying to build and finance the ultimate drumbot or spinner can be very costly and chances of getting it right from the getgo are kind of slim.

BOTSIQ teams that show up at an event with multiple reliable bots stand a much better chance of winning.

JMO

Alex wrote:

This is why I love this forum. We have like 4 different conversations going on at the same time. lol All are off topic

You made this thread. You're responsible for how off-topic it gets.

Quote :

please do not ever say tyler is best in anything. he sat there for 2 weeks with beard making that whatever u want to call it. and it still wasnt that great. there were no textures or anything. just simple lines

I wish I would have taken CAD with Mr. Manack, but I didn't know how useful it would have become. I just hate how CAD works. It seems like it puts you in an infinite plane of NOTHING. So you have to make the little documentation and title box so that people can even read it. I wish it already understood measurements and worked more like google sketch up, just better.

Quote :

If starting from scratch and with limited or no knowledge/experience, the safest bet is to just build 1 robust robot.

I originally wanted to build just 1 or 2 robots but our teacher decided he wanted at least 3 and it only has worked out in the way that now the people who were interested can stay interested in their own designs instead of helping someone with a different robot than they wanted.

[/quote]I wish it already understood measurements and worked more like google sketch up, just better.[/quote]

what do you mean " wish it already understood measurements"?

Mr. P wrote:

what do you mean " wish it already understood measurements"?

Whenever I watched Chunk and Mr. Beard do it it was like you couldn't just read the measurements off of it and they had to do everything at half of the size and then find all of the sizes again at 1/2 scale. It just wasn't very intuitive.