Motorama 2011 Report - Day Three

by Toni 2/20/2011 22:30
All right! Here we go with the last day of Motorama 2011, and there's work to be done! I was up and about on the dot of 6am, with plans to pick up DD coffee and go reassemble the featherweight. [More]

Motorama 2011 Report - Day Two

by Toni 2/19/2011 22:30
Alright ... so this morning it was actually the alarm clock/wake-up call combo that got me out of bed. Hadn't done anything on either of the beetles last night, so it was an early start to get to the pits and fix up the two 'bots in time for safety. [More]

Motorama 2011 Report - Day One

by Toni 2/18/2011 23:00
The alarm clock went off, immediately followed by the wake-up call, but neither of those were responsible for bounding out of bed this morning: the credit goes to the fact I'm here! In Harrisburg, PA! For Motorama! With 'bots! [More]

On the Road to Motorama 2011 - Day 2

by Toni 2/17/2011 21:30
Tony's Competition Diary - February 17th, 2011 Absolutely nothing to report ... fast, quiet drive, without incident. Early bed time ... stuff to do tomorrow!

On the Road to Motorama 2011 - Day 1

by Toni 2/16/2011 23:00
Tony's Competition Diary - February 16th, 2011 [More]

Ready for Motorama 2011!

by Toni 2/15/2011 23:45
After a whole bunch of work, some trials, tribulations, and a little last-minute luck, we're ready for NERC's Motorama 2011! [More]

Presenting Cantankerous Cowpoke 3.0 - Zombie Edition

by Toni 2/15/2011 23:00
The realization dawned this morning that we weren't going to be able to complete our drumbot Nihilistic Naysayer 2.0. We just didn't have the tooling to work on the drum, and without it the 'bot is pretty useless, so we looked around the Build Space to see what was available to us. We stumbled upon a box of old parts, and decided to investigate further. [More]

Presenting Didactic Duelist 1.0

by Toni 2/14/2011 23:30
It's our penultimate day before we jump in the 'Botmobile and take to the highways in search of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and at the moment we have two completed 'bots. The goal today is to increment that number by at least one. [More]

Is it time to panic yet?

by Toni 2/13/2011 23:30
We were hoping to be able to give you another "Presenting ..." post tonight, but it didn't quite work out. Today was a day of tackling challenges, and being beaten soundly by them! [More]

Presenting Formidable Fustigator 1.0

by Toni 2/12/2011 23:45
It's getting close to Motorama 2011 and we're still plugging away on our fleet for the competition. Today's work is to finish up the 30 pound featherweight Formidable Fustigator 0.9. [More]

Major Featherweight Progress

by Toni 2/10/2011 23:00
Our meticulously crafted timetable for preparing for Motorama 2011 has fallen a little behind with various goings-on, so tonight we needed to buckle down and get some major work done. We elected to carry on with the 30lb'er build and see how far we could get. [More]

Thank You, UPS!

by Toni 2/9/2011 23:30
Today, not only did UPS finally drop off our missing parts, but we had the whole evening to work on the 'bots. Granted it was below freezing in the Build Space, but we were determined to keep moving and cross some items off our To Do Lists. [More]

Finishing Frame Parts for the Featherweight

by Toni 2/7/2011 23:00
We've drawn up an aggressive schedule to wrap up our builds in the week and a half before Motorama 2011, so we'd better get cracking! Tonight we have some frame work to do for Formidable Fustigator 0.9. [More]

Some Beetle Work

by Toni 2/5/2011 23:00
We had a pretty productive day yesterday, and temperatures were up, so we were hoping for an equally productive day today. As we were still waiting on some parts for the bigger 'bots we decided to spend some time on one of the beetles. [More]

Presenting Poor Punctuation 1.0

by Toni 2/5/2011 22:00
As if by magic the temperature climbed to 60°F today, and it was a pleasure to be out in the Build Space. Not just because it's warm, but because we knew we'd be finishing a 'bot today! [More]

Hopefully Our Last Arctic Build Day

by Toni 2/4/2011 22:00
Today was officially a Snow Day, with Austin having received a couple of inches of snow overnight - not a common occurrence as you may imagine. We took advantage of the situation to work on a few parts. [More]

Fixing the Antweight Weapon Motor

by Toni 2/3/2011 22:30
The aim for tonight's brush with hypothermia was to fix the weapon motor on Poor Punctuation 0.9. Our investigations last night were leading us to believe we probably failed miserably at soldering the ESC and motor together, so we're going to have another go tonight. [More]

A-sawin' We Will Go

by Toni 2/3/2011 13:30
We have a number of parts that we needed to chop up for a few 'bots, and we were beginning to fret about how well we would do at that with the jigsaw when our Knight in Shining Armour got in touch. [More]

Brrr ... Pushing Past The Hypothermia

by Toni 2/2/2011 23:00
After being forced back inside last night by the absence of warmth in the Build Space we added a fifth layer of clothing tonight and went back out there. We found last night that one of the two drive speed controllers was bad, so we need to replace it, plus we need to figure out why the weapon motor doesn't spin ... [More]

Bad Used Speed Controller - BAD!

by Toni 2/1/2011 22:00
Oh crazy weather! Last night we were building in a T-shirt in 75 steamy degrees. Tonight, it's 25°F and even with four layers of clothing it's pretty darn chilly. Still - we're on a mission to finish the antweight, so time to get going! [More]