Faceplant

Specs

Strategy

Competition

Stories

 

Some memorable moments.

Running Gyrotest for the very first time.

Amy: AHHHHH!! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!! [ turns it off ] WAS IT SUPPOSED TO SPIN LIKE THAT?
Linda: I.. think.. so..

Bin helps us make sense of our ir readings.

Bin: Why is your Happyboard so hot?
Amy: What did she mean by that?
Linda: [ feels Happyboard ] She calls this hot? She should feel my laptop. [ feels laptop ] Oh yeah.. burn..

After rebuilding Faceplant with smaller gearboxes.

Kathreen: Why did you build a red side and a blue side?
Linda: I have this problem.. I tend to reverse the motors.

Test run #254?

Linda: I can't believe it worked.
Amy: Heeheeheeee! Heeheeheeee!

Test run #255.

Amy: Why is it face-planting?
Linda: You've got to be kidding me! It just worked! It was JUST WORKING!! [ sobs ]

After a series of face-planting incidents.

Amy: Hey, uh, should our gears look like this? These aren't really teeth anymore.

Amy learns to readjust her expectations.

Amy, Week 1: I think we should have a ball sorter and ball shooter.
Amy, Week 2: Okay, maybe we can just leave the bad balls behind and keep the good ones in these 2 channels.
Amy, Week 3: Okay, forget sorting. Let's just have a front and back gate.
Amy, Week 3-1/2: I just want to see it go straight and turn.
Amy, Week 3-3/4: I just want to see it go straight.

Linda, just before impounding.

Linda: [ traps LegoMan on a tread between 2 gears ] That's right, LegoMan! What now? Who will save you now???

Most frequent quotes.

Amy: Yeah!! Oh.. oh no.. no.
Amy: Is it supposed to do that?
Amy: Silly question, but did you set the motor speeds to 0 again?
Amy: Please work. Please, robot. Please work.

Linda: I think it'll work this time.
Linda: One more time.
Linda: Apparently, I can't count.
Linda: I love the smell of solder. Should I be worried?

Ross: Hello again.   ← we bugged this one a LOT

Words of advice? (From us?)

What matters is reliability. The simpler the strategy, the more reliable your robot will be. So aim low. Really low. No, we're just kidding.

Timeouts are also good things to have. Our final robot never performed its face-planting stunt because we were deathly afraid of burning out our gears before the minute was up. Check to see if your robot is moving, either via RF or with a hardcoded time limit. If it doesn't set off bump sensors, stop the motors. Nothing sucks more than having to replace an embedded gear in a very well-braced robot hours before impounding.

Another note: it's hard to turn when you're against the wall. (Try it yourself.) Back away from the wall before turning.

Gyroscopes need to be placed horizontally. The more horizontal your gyroscope, the less error it will produce. They also drift. You can either recalibrate after slamming into a wall (on purpose, of course), or subtract a drift component in code. Our gyro worked very reliably on Assignment #3's robot after we accounted for drift.

Addendum.

LegoMan, after escaping the conveyor belt.



Actually, the belt itself doesn't move. You'd think that after an IAP spent putting gearboxes together, Linda would have figured out how to make the belt move or something. Instead, just the gears move. And sometimes they fall out. Linda is Lego-challenged. But the thing is definitely well-braced. Sturdy as.. a rock that's really sturdy.. like it was hot-glued into the ground or something.

Faceplant, after escaping the competition.

 

He's training for the NYC marathon next year. We think.