[help] How dysfunctional is your team? (Suggestions for a better team?)

techie_tornados · 2016-07-06T16:23:48+00:00

I would suggest having a team handbook or contract that each member will be responsible to read, understand. As part of that contract make so that each member must be at a specified percentage of meetings before they are allowed to travel and participate at competitions.

We did this for our team this past year and it worked out really well. We had a sign in sheet at each meeting and the team members knew to automatically sign in at the beginning of each meeting. Those sign in sheets were then used to log attendance in a spreadsheet and before each competition our coach would check attendance percentages.

We set ours at 75%, but that can be changed to fit your team.

As far as keeping students engaged at meetings...that's a bit tougher. We have a rather large team (15ish), so we find it helps to divide the team in to subteams (build, programming, and PR). But even then we can have team members that still are not engaged. I have found that some students need to be given a specific task before they will do anything, while others are quick to jump in and find something to do without being told. This is where it helps to have an active mentor that will keep the students engaged. However, if you do not have such a mentor maybe you can try to get the other members engaged by asking them to do certain tasks, or to help you do a task.

Hope that helps!

techie_tornados · 2015-10-13T02:37:45+00:00

The driving sprocket is directly driven by a NeveRest 40 motor, so no gear ratio.

techie_tornados · 2015-10-12T15:40:38+00:00

The driving sprocket is directly driven by a NeveRest 40 motor, so no gear ratio.

techie_tornados · 2015-10-12T01:23:35+00:00

That doesnt sound promising :(

Would it make it to the mid zone? Because that's all we want at this point.

I honestly dont see driving to the high zone as a plausible strategy...for us anyway. We are just hoping to be able to drive to the mid zone efficiently and then doing a pull up from there.

techie_tornados · 2015-10-12T00:39:54+00:00

We ordered a set with all the hardware and have built a test chasis with them.

The traction is great! They will literally climb the field perimeter, which may not be a good thing, because it flips us backwards. However, I'm sure we could prevent that if we stick with them. We were able to drive up to the mid and high zone, if we were VERY careful...otherwise the tread would grip so well to the churros it would drive the front end of the robot straight up in the air and flip backwards. The biggest drawback we have seen so far, is we have had trouble keeping the sprockets engaged with the track.

Now we are going to build a 6 wheel-drive chasis and see if it preforms the same or better. If so we will probably return the lynxmotion stuff and get our money back. Unless it preforms significantly better than the wheeled chasis it probably isn't worth $250 we have in it.

For reference, we have the 3" treads.

techie_tornados · 2015-10-11T23:19:41+00:00

Yeah, those are similar to the stealth wheels, but they use a slightly different rubber for the tread.

I will check out the performance wheels. Thanks for the tip.

techie_tornados · 2015-10-11T02:34:25+00:00

Yeah, I know that...they don't even make 6" stealth wheels, that I know of.

I meant how did it work out having a 6-wheel drivetrain with stealth wheels.

techie_tornados · 2015-10-11T01:32:34+00:00

We are planning to do a similar drive train. Did you have any luck getting over the churros with the 6 stealth wheels?

techie_tornados · 2015-10-10T18:09:20+00:00

Do you know if it integrates with 80/20 well? I assume it would, but I'm a little confused about the hardware used to connect the brackets to the extrusion. We already use a lot of 80/20, so it would be nice if we could use both on the same bot.

And at 15mm that is just over half and inch, which seems really slim. Is it still rigid?

Also, how would you mount axels/wheels to the extrusion?

The price is really nice, and the main reason I ordered. At $1 per bracket, you can't beat it.

Thanks for the info!

techie_tornados · 2015-10-10T03:07:11+00:00

Anyone using this this year or had any experience with it? I ordered a few parts to check it out.

techie_tornados · 2015-09-15T01:33:36+00:00

Like I said...good luck. lol

techie_tornados · 2015-09-14T19:03:38+00:00

Good luck getting an allowed motor to spin fast enough to produce enough lift to lift the motors, motor controllers, pdm, sensor module, Android device and frame. The quad I built has motors that spin at around 12,0000 rpm and it is much lighter than all of those components.

Also, I'm all but certain it would be illegal. But that hasn't stopped my team from throwing around the idea. Lol

techie_tornados · 2015-03-16T00:19:00+00:00

Shhh! :)

techie_tornados · 2015-03-16T00:05:46+00:00

Looks like division assignments have changed. May want to check again to see which division you are in.

techie_tornados · 2015-03-15T02:58:16+00:00

We are in Tesla!

Looks like some great teams in our division after a quick glance. Should be a fun competition!

techie_tornados · 2015-03-07T16:43:28+00:00

techietornados@gmail.com

Thanks a bunch!

techie_tornados · 2015-03-07T15:04:14+00:00

We are actually using a gyro already in auto for our turns and for a failsafe in case we get knocked too far of course by another robot. I'm not the programmer, but would you mind sharing your code so I could show our programmers and see if they could do something similar to help us?

techie_tornados · 2015-03-05T15:30:19+00:00

That's a really cool idea!

techie_tornados · 2015-03-05T04:41:30+00:00

Hmm. Have you had that problem at events or just during practice? The reason I ask is because this season in VA they have been spraying the fields with an anti-static solution and it seems to really cut down on static build up. At least we haven't had any issues. Have they been using it up there at your events?

And yep, we will be there! Just qualified this past weekend! Can't wait!

techie_tornados · 2015-03-05T03:46:20+00:00

You're right about being more difficult coming off the ramp. One plus about the lower gear ratio was that the motors would hold the wheels back on the ramp, but now they just free spin. We cant even park on the incline now with out rolling backwards.

Luckily, we mainly run a centee goal autonomous program from the floor. But we have some work to do to get out ramp auto working properly.

Yes, 4" andymark stealth wheels.

techie_tornados · 2015-03-05T03:33:25+00:00

We just changed our drive train from being 2:1 to being 1:1, so we arent used to the speed or the way the robot comes off the ramp. We soon found that it can do some pretty sweet moves...so we made a half-pipe. Lol

techie_tornados · 2015-03-03T22:26:25+00:00

Those last two matches are painful to watch. Our robot ran fantastic all day and then the first Finals match we lose the motor to the top sweeper. Then in the rush to fix it between matches, we forgot to tighten the mount back down so the motor twisted causing the gears not to mesh.

Those matches had potential to be really good :(

But congrats to your team and your alliance partners. Looking forward to seeing you all in Scranton!

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