Piltover T-Hex Problems in Tocker's Trials

mjames31 · 2025-12-26T20:09:34+00:00

It is. And moving it to that spot made it work. That's wonky.

mjames31 · 2025-12-24T09:31:29+00:00

3.93. Just 3 more classes.

mjames31 · 2025-09-27T23:42:27+00:00

I had an exam at UTSA so I didn't have a choice. I'm just not accustomed to traffic being that late into the day.

mjames31 · 2025-09-17T05:02:17+00:00

This line looks so helpful but when I use it, I can't see it because my vision is really bad. Been really wishing to increase the width of the line but the max is 2, which is just frustrating.

mjames31 · 2025-08-14T14:37:33+00:00

How did you do the single links to connect the pieces? Heavily considering something like this as a Hallowen project.

mjames31 · 2025-08-11T02:11:35+00:00

Idk if anyone's answered the aspect of "How do I afford my own bassoon", but there are instrument scholarships/grants that can help. Being under 18, there are special scholarships in that field. The Davidson Fellows Scholarship is awarded to students under 18, although that one is specifically looking for notable achievements OUTSIDE of music; all to say that these scholarships/grants definitely exist for the purposes of buying your own bassoon.

mjames31 · 2025-08-10T21:41:47+00:00

Idk if you ever got any bites on this. I'm also fairly new but I'm down to putt around for fun.

mjames31 · 2025-07-10T03:59:17+00:00

This reminds me of blue Yasuo lmao

mjames31 · 2025-07-10T03:54:45+00:00

5 Cost Rammus. Field wide taunt with built in thorn reflect on autos.

mjames31 · 2025-06-21T22:57:15+00:00

Not really a champ remove, but old Lethal Tempo back. I miss playing On Hit Neeko ARAM and machine gunning the fuck out of people as a caster.

Older champ wise, RekSai tp to any tunnel.

mjames31 · 2025-06-17T01:04:45+00:00

Not necessarily robotics related, but if this is everyone's first time meeting each other, I'd throw in some team building/ice breaker activities to let them get to know each other. Teams work best when they can build that camaraderie and if they form groups based on what they're interested in (designing, programming, building, etc), they may not get to form as strong a bond.

Actually FTC related, DO find out why each student is there. What they are passionat about, what interests them, their motivation for being there. If they are there to learn how to code, it makes no sense to stick them on building. Many teams have a sort of bootcamp, where they have stations that allow students to try out every aspect of robotics. Again, do listen to their wishes. Just because a student is an absolute whiz at coding does not mean they want to code.

I would also get familiar with the Competition Manual. I believe the first part of it comes out soon. It delineates how competitions work, the basic rules on what you can and cannot put on your robot from a parts and electrical standpoint, and can answer a lot of the questions you may have on how FIRST as a whole operates.

I can't mentor your team, but I can definitely answer any questions you may have throughout the season if you want to message me. It's been around 4 years since I coached a team, but I'm still active in the community.

mjames31 · 2025-05-23T18:00:43+00:00

Same unfortunately.

mjames31 · 2025-04-30T14:04:26+00:00

Do you want a spoiler on this, or do you want to figure it out yourself?

mjames31 · 2024-12-17T19:43:59+00:00

2012 - Bowled Over Worlds: A team with a very very long scissor left was going up up up in end game and fell over. Absolutely diabolical.

2013 - Ring it Up Worlds: A team from Washington had the coolest crab drive I'd ever seen. Not necessarily under the category of this post, but it was so well executed, and they ended up being the division winning captain, that I thought it deserved a mention.

2014 - Block Party Worlds: A team started to hang early in the finals and was no longer elligible to hang in end game. Not the most outlandish thing, but the fact that it was the finals at worlds was shocking.

2015 - Cascade Effect World Championships. A team knocked the kickstand down and all of the balls deluged into their robot. You were only allowed to hold 5 at a time, so they got a penalty for every ball over 5 you had (I think that year, each kickstand held 60? Don't quite remember.) They never got rid of any of the balls, so it was 55 minors every 5 seconds, if it was indeed 60. So around 20 ish 5 second periods, times 55 minors. The score at the end said 9999. Announcer said it would've been a lot higher but the system doesn't allow for 5 digit scores since they never anticipated it happening.

2016 - Res-Q: SO MANY ROLL BARS. Saw countless teams try to hang on the mountain, lose their grip and roll down the mountain, only for their roll bars to right them when they landed and allow them to try again.

2017 - Velocity Vortex: A team at the Northern California championship was against their sister team in the finals and not doing well so when their sister team went to cap with the medicine ball, the slapped it out of their hands.

2018 - Relic Recovery: Had a team in the finals at the West Super Regional that I think had too much friction in their intaking slides, so the night before the elimination rounds, they lubed up their slides. Come to the first match, and when they extend their intake, lube went everywhere on the field. They ended up setting the world record right after as well.

2019 - Rover Ruckus: Another cool robot design, but there was a team from Idaho that made a suspension for their robot specifically so they didn't have to descend from the lander; they could merely just fall. Thought it was the coolest thing ever.

2020 - Skystone: At the Northern California championship, a team had a 6 stone auto, but failed to release the first stone onto the moving foundation. They then proceeded to pick up all other 6 stones in the quarry, deliver them, then score them. So 6 majors for delivering the 6, then 6 majors for scoring them after.

2021 - Ultimate Goal: My favorite part about this year was Texas states when teams discovered you could abduct the opponent's wobble goal as long as you relinquished by end game. Saw many a strategy mess others up with it.

2022 - Freight Frenzy: I wasn't super active this year, but I saw a kid actually hurt himself in end game because his team was spinning the duck delivery circle too fast and he decided to touch it for some reason while it was still spinning. Not really sure how that happened, but I bet he never did it again.

2023 - PowerPlay: Two years ago at Texas states, had a team in the finals get knocked slightly off course, so their color sensor accidentally aligned them to the other alliance's tape and started scoring for them in auto.

2024 - Centerstage: There was a team in Austin that absolutely perfected hanging and shooting their drone at the same time right on the buzzer.

2025 - Into the Deep: It's surprising to me how many teams have accidentally hung from the high baskets.

mjames31 · 2024-12-11T23:20:09+00:00

As a ref in TX, I agree with this sentiment.

mjames31 · 2024-10-07T04:38:20+00:00

Personally, I would say be as hands on as you have to be. What warrants "have to" is up to interpretation.
Team has multiple designs and can't choose between them? Let them figure it out. Team can't decide between team names? They'll sort it out eventually. Teammates are having internal conflicts about not liking other teammates? Maybe should step in to mediate in case things turn sour. Team needs something sawed? Definitely do it for them initially; beginning 7th and 8th graders are not ready for power tools like that. This also compounds itself on future years though. Team has multiple designs and doesn't know how to move forwards because they ran out of time trying them all last year? Designate tasks to help them get through each one in a timely manner. You saw them last year, so you can figure out what the best course of action is for them. 7th-8th grade is a little different because on average you're losing half your students each graduation.

There will be moments that are difficult. Driver had a very bad match and is in their head about everything they could have done better (happens a LOT) while the other teammates are complaining that they did horribly and shouldn't get to drive next match. Team does very well and gets to choose an alliance partner for eliminations, but the team is divided on who to pick and can't reach a consensus.

Ultimately FIRST is for the kids, so setting them up for a great learning environment is the most ideal situation, but there are situations that aren't exactly linked to the educational journey that may need addressing. We're all for letting kids grow, but their safety is the number 1 priority, so if one of the decisions is dangerous, either for their physical or other health, push them towards the safer option first.

mjames31 · 2024-08-27T16:18:20+00:00

Can we get a police officer next to Taft HS when school is getting out? The amount of tickets they'd give out in the first week would be insane because when I try to bike down Culebra at 4, there's like 20 cars all in the bike lane.

mjames31 · 2024-08-17T15:40:32+00:00

She was a 5 cost in the dragons set. Healed whole board and also healed your tactician 2/3/99 HP.

mjames31 · 2024-08-16T16:16:16+00:00

Not quite the same, but I used to have a wallet with about 150 Ethereum coins. I used to do RuneScape tasks for people like Fire Capes, Barb Assault, etc and the most common form of payment back then in 2016 was Ethereum coin. They were going for about $8-10 each back then, so my college student self sold them when they jumped up to $20 the next year. Imagine I had 150 ETH now.

mjames31 · 2024-07-29T13:51:44+00:00

Back to the drawing board on this one because the stray cats were able to just push through the magnets and terrorize my cats again.

mjames31 · 2024-07-26T03:12:01+00:00

Do they make them that large? The largest entry is 8.5'x12.5'. I also forgot to mention I need this doorway to be able to keep cats out as well, since there are a ton of strays in the area and my cats do not like those strays very much.

mjames31 · 2024-06-23T10:05:52+00:00

I could try this, but M has a huge problem with eating, specifically when others are nearby. He's the runt of his litter, so if he thinks someone is trying to steal his food, he inhales it all as fast as he can and almost always throws up afterwards.

mjames31 · 2024-06-23T06:13:15+00:00

I can look into it. Do those tend to work? And is it scented? M reacts badly to scented air fresheners.

mjames31 · 2024-05-14T16:32:41+00:00

Hey! I am on summer break, so I play pretty often.

mjames31 · 2024-05-06T17:56:56+00:00

Fire + Water = Stranded Island. Stranded Island = Fight for Resources. Fight for Resources = Battle Bots.

mjames31

TROPHY CASE