Robotics - Springing a Surprise

Tonight featured an extra-long meeting of the robotics team. That would have been amazing if we had more than three people there for the majority of the time. Despite our small numbers, we were able to do some poking around with the robot. For the first hour or so, it was just me and an engineering notebook writer. We were unable to replicate the spring insertion that was done the meeting before, so we tried all kinds of alternative means to make springs stop the bar from falling forward. That failed, and we spent a little over a half hour helping the other team repair their robot after a botched rewiring. When some more of our people arrived, we did even more messing around with the springs and came up with absolutely nothing. Near the end, when my father (who has an interest in engineering) arrived, he showed us an excellent way of replacing the torsion springs with expansion strings - or rubber bands.