In previous years, our team has had numerous motor overheating issues. To overcome this, we’ve done everything from having the robot sit on a laptop cooling pad, with another fan blowing on it, and having multiple ice packs sitting on the motors.
Another option we tried was putting our robot in a snowbank for out time out period. Other teams still remember us doing that… :rolleyes:
jpearman’s smart motor library has done wonders in preventing the overheating issues for us:
Also make sure your motors aren’t working too hard. Use friction bearings on all the axles and don’t have just 2 motors doing all the work. Gear for torque, not speed.
Glad to hear that
If anyone follows the link make sure to get the latest version which is 1.02 ( as of Feb 2013).
It seems you have one-upped us. We will be working on that 
Please note that I did say “In previous years…” We don’t have that problem anymore
But I just find it funny that two years after we did the “snowbank cooldown”, teams are still mentioning that they remember us doing that 
Whoops, you misunderstood me. I meant that the ODD thing about it was that it was NOT EVEN true (please see thread title). Warped, subtle humour, sorry. Technically it was not true because Matt has not organised one event. He has organised several events and all have been outstanding. 
Sorry for the confusion, Paul.
There was one at your event on February 2 that launched a preload towards the trough in autonomous. It went right over and we ended up with it, but it was still an unexpected surprise. I think if it could be done with reliability it would certainly be a crowd pleaser.
haha I can totally relate to this and add onto it for organizing a college event as well…
Surprised me with a ticket to go be a head ref at Haverford Stampede in the coming weeks.
I believe you are talking about us ;). I’m also pretty sure that was the only match that we missed, because once we figured out the positioning it was surprisingly accurate.
We put a zip-tie on top of our 15" tower, sticking straight up, so we could say that our robot is 18" tall, but we can still go under the trough.
We built a robot in 6 hours. At the competition. And qualified for Worlds at that competition with that robot.
Our shipment of parts had been delayed for 2 weeks, and we got them Thursday night for a Friday/Saturday competition. We built the entire thing Friday night, wired, programmed and made an Autonomous Saturday morning and got inspected literally 5 minutes before the Opening Ceremony.
That was a hectic weekend. Incredibly awesome story to recount.
Scored floor goal in the Eliminations :p: Indiana State Championship QF #1-1 (Red: 268 Blue: 65) - YouTube