The iRaiders went 5 for 8 at the 2010 Boston Regional competition finishing in 30th place. This beat their last year record of 4 for 7.
The win loss record was eclipsed by the team's performance in the pit and the spirit the team showed throughout the competition. This year's robot was much more complex then last years combing several new technologies including pneumatics and a complex ball screw driven lift mechanism into a single robot.
From Thursday's preparation rounds to Saturday morning the team rose to new challenges and kept on attacking them with courage and energy:
- How do you remove 0.3 lb beyond the robot's weigh in limit of 120 pounds?
- Why didn't the robot move during tele-operation mode?
- Why do the chains keep falling off the drive sprockets this year, when last year that part of the robot was so stable?
- Why did the ball control motor only cycle on for a brief period in autonomous mode, but not during teleoperated mode?
- Is it the software, the pneumatics, the electronics, or a mechanism?
- Why does the pneumatic pump never shut off even though the pressure was rising beyond the safety limit. And once that problem was solved?
- How do you discover all the pin-hole links in fittings and connections?
And though the field position and timing was not perfect to execute the piece de resistance during competition they did have the satisfaction of getting the robot to do multiple chin-ups in the practice area. (see photos).
The resourcefulness that the team demonstrated during the three days of competition is the exact same resourcefulness that brought Apollo 13 back from the moon. Please join me in congratulating each team member.
James Horne
Spark Plug