I suspect that most people reading this have some idea of what took place on Saturday, but I will fill in some gaps. I'm still exhausted, but here goes...
Summary:
Nine robots actually competed
No excavator put regolith in the collection box
Only a few even moved out of the corner
Only one dug any material at all
Fortunately for me, the Tornado was in the last two categories, and was awarded the first place trophy. This is an honor, and better recognition than last year, but the $500k would have been nice.
Details:
I had the excavator pretty much finished last weekend and spent most of the week testing in my front yard, the damaged grass is proof. The machine made the trip up and down the ramp at least 100 times during the week, but I didn't realize that the cute BaneBots planetary gear boxes were getting worn out with the testing.
Friday night, around midnight, after cleaning up the machine, I did one more dry-run with the excavator up on blocks. During the run I could see that the right-hand track was not running, and in fact, the gears were stripped. It took about two hours to disassemble and repair the gear box. I thought a lock-up that had occurred a couple of weeks before is what caused the failure, plus I wanted to sleep a couple of hours before the competition, therefore I didn't inspect the left-hand gear motor... The robot ran for about 10 minutes Saturday morning before the left-hand drive completely failed.
What happened was the teeth of the final ring-gear stage simply stripped out, the strangest thing being that both failures happened essentially within minutes of each other. I will still use gear motors sold by BaneBots for projects, but regardless of whatever product I use, I will perform inspections before engaging a critical task.
This is very frustrating, and one starts to ponder all of the things that could have been done differently to effect a different outcome. I know that other teams were having the same thoughts.
But there is more. After setting up for the excavation attempt in the sand box, the judges "noted" that the marker panels that I attached to the ramp extended past the allowed area for markers. I had built the panels for a 31 inch ramp, and the actual size of 36 inches wasn't even announced until the week before. It never occurred to me that they would be too wide. Later I asked a judge if I would have been disqualified because of the violation, and he suspected that I would have been. That would have been worse than the failed gear box...
It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I did it. Every machine had at least one interesting design feature, and I met some nice people, too...
I put some pictures on the web here: Tornado Photos
I didn't get the huge cash sponsors that I had hoped for, but I did get some support:
Hapman provided the custom-made auger at no charge, and openly offered their support to the effort. Thanks!
Wire Mesh Belt Company did a quick turn-around on the custom wire mesh tank treads, and generously discounted the price.
Robot Power supplied the motor controllers at a discounted price.
Bob CAD/CAM made designing and milling the parts a lot easier
Other companies that made this possible: McMaster-Carr , Mouser Electronics , BaneBots , Kirshaw Designs , and The Perfect Stitch.
I guess I'll take a little vacation before working on next year's machine... ;-)
Summary:
Nine robots actually competed
No excavator put regolith in the collection box
Only a few even moved out of the corner
Only one dug any material at all
Fortunately for me, the Tornado was in the last two categories, and was awarded the first place trophy. This is an honor, and better recognition than last year, but the $500k would have been nice.
Details:
I had the excavator pretty much finished last weekend and spent most of the week testing in my front yard, the damaged grass is proof. The machine made the trip up and down the ramp at least 100 times during the week, but I didn't realize that the cute BaneBots planetary gear boxes were getting worn out with the testing.
Friday night, around midnight, after cleaning up the machine, I did one more dry-run with the excavator up on blocks. During the run I could see that the right-hand track was not running, and in fact, the gears were stripped. It took about two hours to disassemble and repair the gear box. I thought a lock-up that had occurred a couple of weeks before is what caused the failure, plus I wanted to sleep a couple of hours before the competition, therefore I didn't inspect the left-hand gear motor... The robot ran for about 10 minutes Saturday morning before the left-hand drive completely failed.
What happened was the teeth of the final ring-gear stage simply stripped out, the strangest thing being that both failures happened essentially within minutes of each other. I will still use gear motors sold by BaneBots for projects, but regardless of whatever product I use, I will perform inspections before engaging a critical task.
This is very frustrating, and one starts to ponder all of the things that could have been done differently to effect a different outcome. I know that other teams were having the same thoughts.
But there is more. After setting up for the excavation attempt in the sand box, the judges "noted" that the marker panels that I attached to the ramp extended past the allowed area for markers. I had built the panels for a 31 inch ramp, and the actual size of 36 inches wasn't even announced until the week before. It never occurred to me that they would be too wide. Later I asked a judge if I would have been disqualified because of the violation, and he suspected that I would have been. That would have been worse than the failed gear box...
It was a lot of work, but I'm glad I did it. Every machine had at least one interesting design feature, and I met some nice people, too...
I put some pictures on the web here: Tornado Photos
I didn't get the huge cash sponsors that I had hoped for, but I did get some support:
Hapman provided the custom-made auger at no charge, and openly offered their support to the effort. Thanks!
Wire Mesh Belt Company did a quick turn-around on the custom wire mesh tank treads, and generously discounted the price.
Robot Power supplied the motor controllers at a discounted price.
Bob CAD/CAM made designing and milling the parts a lot easier
Other companies that made this possible: McMaster-Carr , Mouser Electronics , BaneBots , Kirshaw Designs , and The Perfect Stitch.
I guess I'll take a little vacation before working on next year's machine... ;-)