Try Try Again
Tenacity is one of those skills I really work on with my high school students. It’s an important skill to know how to push through adversity and find ways to make things work. You can take a break. You can try a different approach. You can ask for help or search for answers or even tinker as needed.
But tenacity is not a call to LARP as Sisyphus. Sometimes, these tasks you set out to do cannot be achieved within the constraints provided. Knowing when your only option is to save your well being and step away is a part of tenacity that comes with experience.
Today, at the NHRL tournament, I had to reach that point.
Carve was good to go. I swear it was. I tested all the components throughout the week, making sure to focus on things like making sure the motors were getting enough power through the PD board and all the electronics played nice with each other. These are issues that have hurt my designs in the past and left them DOA or incapable of getting through the safety check.
I arrived last night with a lot of hope and excitement. All I needed to do to get through safety was slot everything together. 4 screws to connect the top electronics to the bottom electronics, a flip of a switch, and I was good to go.
Except I wasn’t. Only one of 3 motors (2 drive, 1 weapon) would spin. That’s…not enough to demonstrate controlled movement. I spent 3 hours playing with the programming, the adapters, the wiring, the solder, even swapping out parts for backup parts and would only intermittently gain control of both drive motors. I called it an early night in the pits and packed up the electronics to work on at home.
It took me 20 minutes in my own studio to get everything working again. Awesome. I would be ready for safety the next morning. I was competing in the 12lb division and would just let the 3lb bots that started 3 hours before me get through safety before breezing through.
Once again, I connect all things that connect and get…nothing. This was actually worse than before. No matter what I did, the PD board would not switch on at all.
That’s ok. That’s why you have backups. Maybe there was a short. Maybe something got dinged around in my car.
Except the connectors I needed to solder to the backup PD board were not in my kit. I checked the builder shop in the pits and sent out an SOS on the tournament Discord. No luck in the shop and crickets in the forum. It was a long shot. I was looking for backup parts to a newer PD board usually sold as part of a full robotic kit.
No problem. Tenacity kicks in. I can solder the wires directly onto the backup board with all my spares and decades of experience incorporting electronics into my art and propmaking.
Nothing. I go to the backup for the backup and can get some power through it. However, without a backup for the battery adapter itself, I have to switch to my plan F battery option: 9 volt and/or AA battery connectors. This worked to power the board, but did not send enough power to the receiver. I tried plugging in an extra battery to the receiver, which did provide power, but not enough to power up the speed controllers that allowed the motors to move.
I spent 5 hours today soldering/unsoldering/resoldering the same 4 connections on 3 different boards. It was time to step away, accept the loss, and scratch Carve from the tournament.
Is this my ideal outcome? Of course not. I wanted my round pumpkin boy to get his shot at being torn asunder in the arena. I had two full shells (enough for the minimum number of guaranteed fights at NHRL) and backups for the more exposed parts like the weapon arms and wheels. This was suppose to be Carve’s trial by fire so I could see it in actual fights and iterate from there.
Instead, I’m left reevaluating how I connect the robot at all. I already have new adapters coming to get the backup of the bigger board working. Those should arrive in the next few days.
But what of the rest?
For starters, I’m bringing a fully assembled robot from now on to the tournaments. I can pack it up like I was shipping ceramics cross country so there’s no chance of damage in transit.
Second, I need to get the robots done sooner. I’ve driven a lot of RC cars and drones, so I’m confident in my driving skills, but all the confidence in the world doesn’t account for quirks in mobility, balance, and traction that can arise without warning. I hate leaving anything to the last minute, but life and career can make it pretty hard to invest that extra bit of time each day into getting ahead of a hobby.
Third, there are certainly areas where you can take the shortcut and go for the less expensive option. I think I’ve no choice but to invest in a higher quality remote control setup that meets my needs. The big blocky tradition style controllers actually cause me a lot of pain because of my carpal tunnel. The gamepad-style controller I picked up for Carve is a much better fit, but I need to invest in a higher quality unit than the “good enough” option.
Tenacity is a key life skill. So is learning how to deal with disappointment and grow. Carve is providing me a lot of room to practice those skills today.
