Early Reduction - April 2001 This footage is the first video I took during the robot building process. It is actually the first time and parts moved under their own power. Honestly, it's not very exciting to watch but I was pretty stoked when I spun up the wheel ;) Some notes about the setup you see are that I was using a 2.5:1, one stage reduction here. I later went to a 5:1, two stage reduction.	SIZE: 1.45 Meg / 48 Sec WMV Format / Click Pic to Start Video
What?! ... What?! - April 2001 This footage was taken on the day I realized something was wrong with my setup. The day I found that I could spin the wheels forward and backward, but not turn them. I still didn't have the front wheels on at this point so I had not driven the robot yet. I was taking this footage originally to get some advice on what the problem might be with not being able to turn (of course, I figured it out later by burning up some speed controllers... See VI Build Report 10 for details). However in this clip I never even got the wheels to roll. The receiver battery eliminator had come loose so when I turned on the radio and pushed forward on the stick, nothing happened. I didn't know that was what was wrong while I was taping though ;)	SIZE: 2.64 Meg / 1 Min 28 Sec WMV Format / Click Pic to Start Video
Stutt..ttt.tt..err.rrr - April 2001 After troubleshooting a little and asking for some help at various places on the internet, I thought perhaps my ESC's just needed to be calibrated or that I had some type of control problem with my radio. So, I changed the radio to use Evelon mixing to steer, calibrated my Victors, and finished installing my 4WD drivetrain. Time for another test run to see if I could steer. I still couldn't steer :) About two minutes after I stopped taping was when the first speed controller caught on fire from all the shorts that it was trying to supply current to. In retrospect, the amount of time that the Victors held up to all the shorts I was throwing through them is pretty amazing. The Innovation First peeps make a great product!	SIZE: 2.64 Meg / 1 Min 27 Sec WMV Format / Click Pic to Start Video
WOOHOO! - April 2001 After smoking two speed controllers before figuring out that the motors were grounded internally, finding that I had to buy a butt-load of NiCads at the last minute to get down to weight (HillTop Batteries Rock! Thank you Steve!), and designing then installing a low-weight 2 stage reduction for more torque/less amps drawn, it was all starting to come together. <--- How's that sucker for a run-on sentence? Not only could I steer, it moved like a rocket! It was a huge weight off my shoulders for everything to finally work together. Obviously, I wasn't finished yet but the major hurdles had been cleared. Thank you to anyone and everyone who contributed to the robot making the shipping deadline!	SIZE: 12.8 Meg / 7 Min 10 Sec WMV Format / Click Pic to Start Video