I apologize and may have inadvertently stepped on a few toes and upset some of the coaches on this listserve in my recent posting. Let me be clear, my comments were *generic* advice and sincerely not intended to accuse anyone of wrong doing. If anybody took my comments in that manner, that was not my intention. I was using this particular topic as a generic example (which may not have been the best approach in retrospect). Perhaps I should have had a few more caffeinated beverages before hitting <send>. Mea Culpa.If you read my posting initially as an accusation, I request you read it again with a positive spin on it. My intention was to encourage facilitation and mentoring by coaches.BillIf you will allow me, I would like to get up on my virtual soapbox for a few moments and provide some generic advice. Some of you know me, some of you don't. Let's just say, I have been associated with FIRST and FLL for a while.As I see some of the dialog on this listserve, I am secretly hoping that all of the coaches and mentors are using this information to teach their FLL teams. These are wonderful teaching opportunities for your teams. How you interact with your teams makes all the difference. Using this thread as an example, on one end of the spectrum, you can take the lessons learned from the other coaches and just tell the team, "the way to fix the wheel slipping is to do XYZ". If you do that, you will certainly shorten the team meeting and get closer to a better working robot. On the far end of the spectrum, you can mentor and facilitate the team, by leading them through a series of questions: "how is it slipping?", "how long is it slipping?". You can help them to do some research online to investigate the physics of friction. What are the factors that influence friction? What modifications can you do to the robot to reduce the probability of friction occurring (ensure the wheels are clean, increase the surface area by using more or different wheels, increase the weight directly over the wheels)? I am an engineer and we do this all the time. You will be, without you knowing it, teaching the children the basics of failure reporting and corrective action (FRACA). Rarely does any engineering project work initially. There is always an iterative process by which the product is incrementally improved (OBTW, take a look a the Robot Design rubric: https://firstinspiresst01.blob.core.windows.net/fll/2020/first-lego-league-rubrics.pdf). Notice "design process"?)If your only goal as a coach is to win a FLL tournament, just go purchase a trophy, get a cake and have a party now. If your goal is to develop your team members (and I hope it is), use these learning moments to discuss with your teams what is going on. If you are a rookie coach and not and engineer, don't fret. It is OK to be vulnerable and tell the team you do not know. Show them how to find the answers, do the research together. Give them homework do do between meetings (I did this as a coach to get my team to learn line following).I have always told coaches that the main part of FLL is during the season as you prepare for a tournament. The tournament should be a celebration of what your teams have accomplished over the season. Please capture these moments and use them to educate and develop your team members. What part this teaching spectrum you choose will make a big difference in what your team members will take away from your coaching.<Getting off soapbox now>Thank you for volunteering and have a great season!BillLast year, my team had luck improving consistency in a similar situation by making sure the wheels were wiped clean (just with a dry rag) each time before a run. Turned them into a little bit obsessive with the cleaning but definitely improved consistent start, turn, stop.This actually seems to be problem with the mat, I believe. We’ve run the same robot on multiple mats...and then other robots on this board. The robots run on this board skid and slip along the mat mainly when the robot turns...but who knows? Very time is a surprise. :) It really seems to be a problem with the quality of the mat. At first, we thought it had to do with how much it was used - possibly newer mats still had a glossy film on it or something. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, as we ran the same robots on a mat right out of the box without any of these issues. So...we don’t know and were just wondering if it’s our sole mat or if others were having trouble as well?Weird.Thanks much,AmySent from my iPhoneFirst, verify that you have wheel slip. Film it in slo motion. Does it happen every time? Does setting a slower speed help? Going from zero to 100 in a blink is pretty much always going to cause some slip. Especially if you have big wheels. Also, is your robot balanced? Maybe you have a heavy attachment on one side? That can throw things off by taking a lot of weight off of one wheel which can cause it to slip more easily. Finally, for a really advanced solution you can try and write an acceleration myblock. Otherwise, the only solutions are to ensure your robot is balanced, and use slower speeds.Accelerating from start. Wheels spin but it doesn’t grip on the mat. Doesn’t happen every time but throws off the robot just enough to mess up the mission.
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From: Skip Morrow <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 7, 2019 8:04:22 PM
To: Alicia A. Strahan <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [VADCFLL-L] Robot skidding on boardWhat do you guys mean by "skidding"? When I think of skidding, I think of putting on the brakes, locking up my tires, and screeching to a stop. That obviously doesn't apply here.
Are you talking about a general loss of traction, leading to robot inaccuracy? If so, are we talking mostly during turns? Or accelerating from a dead stop?
We have noticed a problem as well. It does not happen every time and does not happen when we run the code on a different surface like the floor.
Alicia Strahan
STEM Lab Teacher
Rosa Parks Elementary School
From: First Lego League in Virginia and DC <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Alina Marston <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 7, 2019 3:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [VADCFLL-L] Robot skidding on boardHi everyone,
My team is having trouble with our robot wheels skidding on our board. My team has tested their robot on two other boards and the robot's wheels do not skid when turning on the other two boards, but they do skid when they turn on ours. We had another team test their robot and programs on our board last week and their wheels skidded also when running on our board. In all, we've tested three other robots on the other two boards and none of them skid like on ours at home. Has anyone else had this problem?
Thanks!
Alina Marston
The Magically Energized Lightning Waffle Bunnies
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