I spend four months of weekends freezing my ass off in an unheated metal shop, getting blisters and cuts and burns and even a metal splinter in my eye. I spend too much money on parts and materials, not to mention the entrance fee and hotel charge, piss my wife off for now reason, getting the damned robot together. I stake my pride and reputation on an unproved design, something that everyone in the competition is looking forward to seeing in action. I even called in a favor at the professional machine shop to get the stainless steel claw treated with hardfacing rod.
And now, the night before the competition, the goddamn fucking relay board fails. Welded contact, or something. Worked through a hundred or so uses during testing. Just wanted to try out the claw with the new tip, and after one good crush the weapon won’t actuate anymore.
Goddam it! What the fuck! Why now? If it had happened a week ago, I could have easily replaced it. I don’t have any spares. I don’t have any way of repairing the relay itself. Without the weapon controller, there’s not much reason to compete at all.
Goddammit, I hate it when the contact relay boards on my homemade robots fail right before the big show. Then I have to rub the professional hardfacing rod to get everything working again!
(Sorry. I know how much it must suck to have something break on you right before you really need it. )
When I was in Junior High our Olympics of the Mind team (that was before the real IOC sued to make them change the name) built a vehicle that failed right before the competition. We were building it in the school’s shop. Apparently some of the kids in shop class were playing with it. There was no way to fix it in time.
I feel your pain.
Heh. I remember that name change. The last Odyssey of the Mind that I participated in was the “Delayed Reaction” problem of 1992. And during the state competition, we saw numerous teams’ projects go nutty right before and during competition. A familiar cry heard throughout was, “But it worked yesterday!”
Robot builders are nice people. Goto the competition, spread the word that your last relay fried last night and you will either have a new relay in no time or 30 people gathered around telling 2 other people how to correctly wire in a difference relay to make it work.
I would never have known that (probably because I’ve never built a competition robot).
I agree with going to the show. Even if no one can get you up and running, you’ll meet people, learn stuff, and live vicariously through the other contestants.
I second this. Every single person at that event will know what it feels like to have some part fail on you and I would be very suprised if they are not willing to help in any way they can. They will very likely help you repair your bot or let you have any spare relays they have on hand(veterans will have tons). During the match they’ll be trying to pound you into the dust, but no one wants to win due to mechanical failure.
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