Robo-Cross B

[DrunkWapiti]

People with kits please read this:

Hi, I understand this post will be deleted within a day or less. But I would like to bring up a topic that has really ticked me off this year.
me and my friend built our robot from scratch and used an arduino to program it. I currently control it with my phone over bluetooth.
Our robot has been doing fairly well this year, but at every meet we get topped by some rich private schools with vex kits and have a
"modification" of just replacing maybe a couple wires. Even after compliments from the judges like, "wow, you built that from scratch!"
I then look at the kids they represent and see that they have some $800 dollar kit. I dont have $800 to spend on science olympiad!
I swear, this event is a war on money! Personally, I would rather see this event taken out, or some sort of rule that discriminates
expensive kits, making this event more reachable for kids like me who dont have a ton of money to spend on Science Olympiad.
I also dont like mindstorms because you put just about no effort into your programming! I work my butt off to program my robot,
and what do you do? I hope some of you actually consider this instead of just ignoring.

[chalker]

People with kits please read this:

Hi, I understand this post will be deleted within a day or less. But I would like to bring up a topic that has really ticked me off this year.
me and my friend built our robot from scratch and used an arduino to program it. I currently control it with my phone over bluetooth.
Our robot has been doing fairly well this year, but at every meet we get topped by some rich private schools with vex kits and have a
"modification" of just replacing maybe a couple wires. Even after compliments from the judges like, "wow, you built that from scratch!"
I then look at the kids they represent and see that they have some $800 dollar kit. I dont have $800 to spend on science olympiad!
I swear, this event is a war on money! Personally, I would rather see this event taken out, or some sort of rule that discriminates
expensive kits, making this event more reachable for kids like me who dont have a ton of money to spend on Science Olympiad.
I also dont like mindstorms because you put just about no effort into your programming! I work my butt off to program my robot,
and what do you do? I hope some of you actually consider this instead of just ignoring.

Not sure why you think this will be deleted. Regardless, the rules writers (including myself) are generally very sensitive to the issue of the costs of events and trying to prevent teams from 'spending their way to success'. And in robot events like this we've seen time and time again that money generally doesn't correlate to success. I've seen $5000+ robots completely fail at Nationals, and robots made with parts scavenged here and there win medals. There are many people on this board that can share similar stories. We've seen it's generally the level of practice and preparation that results in high scores.

Kudos to you for building something from from scratch. I can guarantee you that what you've learned from that experience will benefit you long after Science Olympiad is just a distant memory, which is one of the main goals of SO.

[iwonder]

Heh, if we were going to delete something it happens faster than a day

That being said, Robot Arm was a Div C event I competed in last year, and I spent a large sum of money building my own arm from scratch, and it did well, but never quite as well as teams who just did some simple mod to a kit. It's frustrating, but know this, just because you spend money on a kit, that doesn't give you an instant win. What counts the most in these events is practice. As long as you can do basic things with your bot, practice it, get the time down, etc, etc. You'll do better than teams that buy a kit and don't do anything with it. And it's much more impressive to win with a homemade device than some slightly modified kit

[Flavorflav]

whoa that's crazy. Fantastic scores! I have a question as to why some regions don't do all the events at regionals. I think it gives a slightly unfair advantage over other competitors because they have already participated in the event while for others, it is their first time (like me )

Go help run a regional someday, and then you won't have to ask.

[UQOnyx]

Heh, I agree, the logistics probably would drive you crazy.
Jeff reccomended that the best thing to do would be to use an rc car chasis. My partner and I were originally going to use a prebuilt rover but it isn't working. My problem with using an r/c car is that would it be able to carry the load of the arm, plus the battery, plus the tennis ball or D-cell batteries and everything else... Would someone direct me to a cheap car that they know for sure will be able to hold all of the weight?

[jander14indoor]

Well, not best thing, just a good place to start. My goal on these forums and when coaching is to give students a good place to start, teach them how to think about these problems, and help spark ideas of what ELSE to try. With my kids grown, I'm less concerned about who wins than making sure every team succeeds.

I don't give "winning" suggestions because I don't claim to know the answers. As much time as I spend writing rules, thinking about writing rules, preparing to run events, running events, I spend far less time on these events than competitive teams do. So, while I may develop theories, I don't have data to prove them. Just many years of experience as an engineer and jack-leg mechanic. I get to see LOTS of devices and observe what works and what doesn't.

I did see one team use an RC dump truck that carried the arm well enough.

Good luck

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

[riceman]

As the guy who has to break those ties at nationals, did they settle them with the first tie breaker only, or did they have to go to the second? Were the two tie breakers sufficient?

Thanks,

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

I haven't seen a tally of the final scores. I only know for sure the scores of our own teams. I'm pretty sure though that the two tie breakers will be enough. I can't imagine the odds of two teams having identical times AND coming in at exactly the same weight. I guess to be certain you could get a balance capable of measuring mass down to 0.1g. That should separate them out. I would hate to be the team that dropped a place in nationals by 1 gram

[helicpters_rule]

As the guy who has to break those ties at nationals, did they settle them with the first tie breaker only, or did they have to go to the second? Were the two tie breakers sufficient?

Thanks,

Jeff Anderson
Livonia, MI

I haven't seen a tally of the final scores. I only know for sure the scores of our own teams. I'm pretty sure though that the two tie breakers will be enough. I can't imagine the odds of two teams having identical times AND coming in at exactly the same weight. I guess to be certain you could get a balance capable of measuring mass down to 0.1g. That should separate them out. I would hate to be the team that dropped a place in nationals by 1 gram

At one of the invitationals I went to it came down to mass between me and another team and I stopped about a minute early.

[dferdjr8]

My partner and I bought a kit. What's a good functional modification?

[gmui]

I bought a large number of Vex robot parts off of ebay for my son and he built his robot without any instructions using the parts available. I did separately buy him the claw component from Vex to use. Since it wasn't a follow-the-directions kit, would this suffice as a modification or would they view it as a kit? He also programmed it all by himself too.

Also, is everyone building their own test arena?

Finally - our regional is excluding this event from being part of the scoring because of the expensive nature of this event and not wanting to discriminate. So he's just doing this as part of an exhibition (though they will score people's entries and give out medals).