Talon: Year 2008
Talon was the first robot that branded Team 540 to TALON 540. Theoretically, Talon was an ingenious design. With omni wheels with chains, it would be able to move quickly and smoothly. With its claws, it would be able to grab and launch balls over the overpass as well as herd them across the lines. Unfortunately, the chains on the omni wheels made Talon too heavy and the claws could not create enough friction to grip the ball. To meet weight requirements, the chains from the front wheels were removed, relinquishing some speed. The team managed to get its hands on some shelf liner to wrap around the claws, hoping it would create more friction so Talon could pick up the ball. Despite technical difficulties during the regional, the team had a lot of fun and became excited about the next season. Although the team as a whole did not win anything, former mentor Mr. Jim Lehman claimed the Woody Flowers award in the 2008 NASA/VCU Regional championship.
Triton: Year 2007
Triton was the result of the Henrico Triad. Although the alliance did not work, the team learned many organizational and structural skills from it. Initially, Triton was designed with a ramp; however, it was ruled out by the triad. Regardless, Triton was agile yet robust leading TALON 540 into the finals. Ultimately, the team was able to claim the 2007 NASA/VCU Regional championship.
Pandora: Year 2006
Pandor had a precise hopper that can shoot the playing balls with the speed of a hawk. This precision device was both a scoring machine and an aggressive defensive robot that was able to go all the way to quarter finals.
C.H.O.M.P.—“Cute Hunk of Metal Pieces”: Year 2005
Sporting two defensive wings, C.H.O.M.P could not score but was able to get to the quarter finals with its eagle like aggressiveness.
Arcturus: Year 2004
Arcturus could climb stairs and had a pneumatic lift which was a scoring machine.
Rhythmic Disturbance: Year 2003
After the “marathon repair session” that was Talon, the team did a thorough inventory of what worked and what did not and was determined to construct a robust robot. That goal was almost met in Rhythmic Disturbance (R.D), the entry for the 2003 challenge Stack Attack. R.D. was designed to lift and carry stacked bins as well as to move smoothly. Unfortunately, the lifting mechanism ended up too heavy and was eliminated from the robot to make the weight restrictions. Regardless, R.D was one of the best defensive robots in the tournament, able to sprint at will, up and down the wire mesh ramps, bashing opponents' stacks, and guarding alliance's stacks. R.D. was the team’s first really successful attempt at autonomous scoring, making a u-turn up the ramp and bringing many of the stacked bins down to our side of the field.
Talon: Year 2002
In response to the 2002 challenge, Zone Zeal, the team designed Talon, a robot that was clearly built for speed, and lived up to the challenge. With huge Skyway traction wheels, it could out-pull every robot it met—at least until the universal joints and transmissions broke, which happened just about every round due to some critical design flaws. Thanks to a lot of help from Sparky 384, TALON 540 managed to get Talon running in time for each round. Overall results at the NASA/VCU regional were not satisfactory, but the team went to the Championship anyway. Talon continued to perform well, pulling towers on offense, and able to sprint rapidly to any zone to defend. Although the team finished almost in last place, the championship was considered a great learning experience.
Thor: Year 2001:
Thor was TALON 540 (then known as Team 540)’s first robot. A crew of about 6 students worked on all aspects of the robot except for cutting the aluminum, which was done by former team mentor, Jim Lehman. Although the team was unable to recruit engineers, it was a goal for future years. In the challenge, Diabolical Dynamics, Thor was a humble yet capable robot, pulling and balancing a scoring tower up the teeter bridge. TALON 540 practiced gracious professionalism by sprinting across the bridge and hitting our kill switch to earn time bonuses for the alliance.