We are not talking about rockets, but apparently, I had to face a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly of the Mast Tower's head. It doesn’t take a degree in aerospace engineering to know that, ideally, rockets aren’t supposed to blow up. Similarly, a robot is not supposed to break apart during a test. However, this is exactly what happened. During the test, a coding error made one leg go rogue, turning the robot into a bit of a daredevil and resulting in a not-so-graceful tumble from the table. Luckily, the legs and other moving parts survived the crash, but poor Continuity's neck got the worst of it. The elevation mechanism to control the pitch angle of the Imager (the head of the Remote Sensing Mast), is a simple 3D-printed extension of an aluminium servo motor horn. This helps reduce the mechanical complexity, but also makes it much more fragile when the robot has to survive a fall.
Lesson learned: While we love keeping things light and simple, we've got to find that sweet spot between lightweight design and toughness. I am patching up Continuity, adding some extra code safety features, and making sure the robot is ready to handle whatever comes its way. Here's to smoother tests in the future!