Up Dates

Ok so this might end up being a very long post... my fault for never updating.

Anyways, we did build a 120 this year, but not exactly the way we expected. For most of the year we worked on a shell we found at the shop and stripped it of all its parts. We were going to re-purpose it weapon-wise by giving it a spinning eggbeater type weapon rather than a drum. Unfortunately we ran into financial issues and that led to time management issues because we lost time trying to find a good price on good metal. We ended up just buying the cheapest steel we could find but as things usually turn out for us we backed out of the competition, not having enough time to finish.

I mean, we would normally just build up to the last second, but we would also have to pay up 500 dollars if we didn't finish because of registration. Most of us weren't willing to risk it and tensions boiled. Several fights broke out but at least everything is all peachy keen now. But back to February.

So there are four days left until check in for the competition and we have no robot. Our teacher suddenly informs us that we need to finish up a hammer bot (sound familiar?) that our friends had been working on but couldn't finish. Although I'm not sure, I don't think we would have been penalized the 500 dollars for this robot if we didn't finish.

We got to work immediately, rewiring the entire robot. Two huge motors, another one that would spin a bar that would lift the hammer, and four lead batteries; the robot is old, I know that. Most of our money raised at our garage sale went towards Watson (named after the jeopardy robot). The last night we had to work on him we stayed until midnight and got everything to work... miraculously. We still had some issues. Because of weight issues we had to forgo two of the batteries, giving us very short running time. The hammer was extremely faulty and the bar kept slipping on the shaft, but we didn't care. It worked!

At competition we got both Watson and Kanye past inspection... it's possible the baked goods we brought with us might have helped... just kidding.

Kanye by the way received a steel bottom plate and an aluminum top. Much better than the plastic we'd originally been using. No zip ties either, we actually tapped the holes this time around to get the top on.

Competition didn't go too well unfortunately. Kanye's motors got stripped two minutes in... we've replaced them three times. I think it's safe to say we won't be buying those ever again. As for Watson, the batteries kept getting disconnected because of our carelessness. It was a bummer because our first match was against Fuffy del Large, our friends from Ransom's robot.

That thing is insane. A quick recap of the competition: this robot went undefeated to the finals where it competed against El Cholo, Ransom's other robot. Fluffy beat El Cholo and then had a match against Witch Doctor the first place winner of the professional league and WON! I'm proud to be their friend.

And back to the Mechanical Misfits (sorry I'm all over the place). We lost our first two matches in both divisions and one of our motors on Watson fell completely off the shaft. At least it's only up hill from here. Yes, I'm disappointed with our losses because we might have had a chance if only we'd been more responsible. There were a lot of things I should have done like check the connections and the motors but oh well. I have no regrets... or at least I know I shouldn't have any. I definitely have hope!

We got ourselves a mentor with the help of our baked goods and are already working on our robot for next year. We're beginning with solid works.

Oh, I almost forgot, we bought a team fish named the Littlest Misfit. I will upload photos when I can figure out how to.

What came first the Budget or the Design?

Alright, so great news everybody. We have acquired a shell for our 120!

What do I mean by this? Well, my team and I decided on going forward on our plans to create a 120 pound vertical spinner. To do this we would have to create a monetary budget, and weight budget as well as a design. The problem encountered was that the materials in our design plan would depend on the budget and our budget couldn't be created until we had a plan. It's safe to say we were stuck in quite a hole.

Fear not! While at the shop, we found an empty shell of a past robot. Shocker, was its name. The shape is hexagonal with one end elongated. Every edge is slanted so as to serve as a wedge. The old motors are still in the robot and work but we're almost certain we'll be replacing them. Originally, Shocker was a drum but it'll be re-purposed to fit our plans. I'm excited, the team is excited, and we finally have a jumping point to start off of.

Phase 1

Curious as to what's been going on?

Well basically we've been to the shop a couple times and have gotten the ball rolling.

Phase 1 is basically the October 23 competition for 15 pounders. We will be resurrecting Lil' Kanye for this event. He's pretty much done but his motors have to be changed because they are just way too slow.

Of course, us being us, the new motors we ordered were too big but not an entire waste because they will probably work for our 120 pound robot... yes we are finally joining the big boys ... or should I say big girls (I'm aware of my failure of a joke). Anyway, at this point we are waiting for the new-new motors to come in so that we can improve Lil' Kanye.

This year looks good and the Mechanical Misfits are optimistic.

And the Year Begins

Hello everyone! It has been our first week back to school (so long, Summer, we'll miss you) and having learned from last year's timing issues we have already held several meetings.

Meeting #1

I presented my new organizing strategy which basically consists of documenting everything that is done at the shop and everything that needs to be done in a binder/notebook that stays at the shop. What this does is ensure that whoever goes--even if they did not go the previous time--will be aware of what is going on. This will allow anybody to go and work on the robot. The reason I find this necessary is because this past year there was a team member that went every time and not everyone could go when she could. What ended up happening was that there were people that were sometimes uninformed about the going ons of the robot and because of this they became unable to go on their own. This significantly reduced the effectiveness of having a big team because now it no longer became about having people go when they could, but rather about going when the most people could go. In turn, there were more people there than were needed. Unfortunately this caused internal problems which led to part two of the meeting

A member of the team felt that the size of the Mechanical Misfits was inefficient and should be cut down somehow. She decided that splitting into two teams would be best; others however, did not feel the same. The team was nonetheless split when she said she would quit the team as would another member, leaving the rest of us to choose to stay or join them. It ended with a new addition to the team joining them and the other three remaining as Mechanical Misfits (3 girls quit robotics) . Two days later, the girl who had first decided to split the team felt that six girls was sufficiently small enough and thus the Mechanical Misfits stick together.

Note: there are only two girls left from the original freshman year team.

Meeting #2

We held the first design meeting on Friday and after must deliberation rested on two possibilities for a 120 pound robot.

1. a wedge drum combo

2. a geometric shape with wedges on all sides with a spinning hammer mechanism on the top

Hopefully we can choose by the end of next week.

Big Changes All Around

Ok so first off, at the Bot Pop competition at the local science museum Batbot recently outfitted with razorblades and sharp scrap metal won two out of four matches. In the competitions we had to pop ten balloons of our assigned color and pop the white balloon attached to the back of the opponent's robot. It was double elimination and although we lost, we aren't discouraged because the two matches we lost, were very close just a balloon difference.

Now onto the big change. We are no longer doing a 15 pound robot. We are going for the heavy metal... 120 pounds of pure amazingness. As of now we are keeping the design we had for the smaller robot and just modifying it for a larger one. Our first move however is to network and find sponsors in order to pay for our expenses in actually building this monstrous robot.

Thirdly, one of team members resigned and two more have been added making a total of 5 members on the Mechanical Misfit team. More might be on the way but that depends on how well one of our fellow teams holds togther.

Exciting News!

Well first off, Batbot is going to be competing in a small competition in a local museum. We do however have to modify him so that he can pop ballons since that is the competition.
In any case the real news is that our final design for this year's fifteen pound robot is decided. Hopefully you can bear with me and understand that the actual design must be kept top secret for now but just be asured that it is very exciting.

Next Steps

Our goal is to compete in the 15 pound battle competition in 2010. This is just a glimpse of what the battle bots can do:




This is a saw pinned against a spinner robot.

The Trip

We arrived Monday, April 20th on my birthday in hot San Francisco, prepared for cold weather mind you; luckily it cooled down a couple days later. Anyhow, after signing in, doing some sightseeing and a couple intense card games we got down to business because the competition was soon to start.

Mare Island, an old abandoned naval base (the “Mythbusters” have held some of their experiments here), is where the competition took place. All around people were preparing, tweaking their bots here and there, and just buzzing with excitement. Camera crews were there to document the event which was to premier on a show somewhere around November. Although most of the coverage went to the 120 and 220 pound robots they definitely captured the spirit of the whole event. It was kids ranging from all ages exhibiting their skills in an exciting way.

Now, onto the actual competitions.

The task oriented completion in which our Bat Bot competed was not the most exciting of the events but the main idea was to show us the principle skills of robotics. The teams competed with driver controlling the robot with a remote, a coach who told the driver what to do and, a human player who could pick up and load ping pong balls onto the robot, and shoot any available balls into the basket at the last ten seconds of the match. I was the driver for my team, and let me tell you it is stressful because you might have a real top notch robot, but if you can’t drive it the robot is useless.

The crowd favorite seemed to be Rolie Polie Olie team because it was a really cute robot even though wasn’t the most effective one. It looked like an upside down metal bowl painted yellow with red arms that would essentially hug the ping pong balls and then bring them to the human players. If you’ve ever seen the cartoon from Playhouse Disney, let me tell you this robot was a splitting image.

Next comes the 15 pound battles. The main robots seen here are wedges, plows, drums, saws, and spinners. Wedges and plows work in the same way in that they have a piece of the robot that is flat to the ground that can get under other robots and flip them over. Drums and saws are attached weapons that spin at high velocity; they can move vertically or horizontally and create internal damage to robots as well as flipping them very high into the air in some cases with the vertical ones. Lastly, spinning robots are like metal spinning cakes with spikes and other accessories that spin at high speeds and send robots flying all over the place. Robots with hammers are not seen often because they are not very efficient.

The 120 and 220 pound matches were held in the same arena equipped with immense hammers on each corner that make deafening booms when they hit the ground. Also saws pop up at different of the arena floor and revolving saws lie on each side of the arena. These matches were the most watched and most fascinating and for good reason. The best match was a pink spinner against a wedge. The team Fuchsia Fusion, a senior team from my school, tore apart the wedge in two seconds flat. Boom! One panel flew off and hit the opposite wall. Boom! There went another. By the time the opposing team tapped out all that was left was the metal frame and the wires. It’s easy to say they were annihilated, and not to mention the team that was beat was a huge all guy team that lost to a three girl team.

The Results

We came in fourth place nationally in our division and came in second for documentation a seemingly small but huge part of the competition. We received an award that was made up of a broken saw piece and to my team seemed beautiful in all its grunginess. My school also placed first and second in my division and ranked highly in others. All in all, the reputation of my school was maintained and we had fun so the trip was a success as was the experience.