Battery Buggy B

[new horizon]

Well, generally if your axle rod is on a slant you can travel around an obstacle... you just need a lot of testing....

[robotman]

You will also want to play with angles so that you have an angle associated with each distance needed to travel

[new horizon]

^yes that's a good idea too.
It's pretty simple but there is a lot of time and dedication involved to testing your buggy for different track widths.

[purplepeopleeater]

so i missed the competition this weekend-- so i asked our Bat Bug team how it went -- this is what they said
They built the buggy the night before.... collaborated for 30 minutes but it was 11pm so they had to go.
at the competition the first time, it ran into the bucket
the second it ran into the proctor.
we got Fourth in this event out of 20 or so teams...
tell ya anything??

we have a competition in two weeks and we are building an entirely NEW buggy ... sigh. just when we get it straight, they want it to curve.

[new horizon]

well, although perhaps you could get away with a medal with minimal effort at a regional/invitational doesn't mean you can do the same for states or nationals. you definitely want to put more effort and don't procrastinate.

[robotman]

so i missed the competition this weekend-- so i asked our Bat Bug team how it went -- this is what they said
They built the buggy the night before.... collaborated for 30 minutes but it was 11pm so they had to go.
at the competition the first time, it ran into the bucket
the second it ran into the proctor.
we got Fourth in this event out of 20 or so teams...
tell ya anything??

I wouldnt count how it worked a Cy falls as a good judge of how it did overall

[purplepeopleeater]

you kidding??? i know not my event though it takes TONS of work to get to nats. haha, TONS

thats why we are building a new one. how it worked at cy falls was a desperate run. our B team got first and they have it pretty down, so we are modifying designs and redoing blueprints.

oh yeah the whole point of the above "story" which is true... is that we ALLLL have work for Div B buggy if our quick build was 4th.

[lakeside]

Is there any reason I couldn't use wind-up lego motors and put the axle on a slant to travel around the obstacle? The rules never mention specifically that you have to use batteries. My school isn't going to be able to get motors but we have plenty of lego pieces lying around

[ichaelm]

Is there any reason I couldn't use wind-up lego motors and put the axle on a slant to travel around the obstacle? The rules never mention specifically that you have to use batteries. My school isn't going to be able to get motors but we have plenty of lego pieces lying around

Take a look at the first sentence of the rules:

DESCRIPTION: Teams construct a vehicle that uses electrical energy as its means of propulsion, quickly travels a specified distance, and stops as close as possible to the Finish Dot.

[WillyG]

Hey guys I'm just curious: what width of a track would you recommend testing on? What do you think will be the minimum at most competition?