Rookie Mistake of the day

[mklinker]

I was so proud of our team today. After arriving late and being further delayed by leaving our paperwork at home we were still one of the first six teams to pass inspection at the Boilermaker Regional. After inspection we tested shooting on the practice field for about an hour with great success and then cued up for a match on the real field only to have extreme connection issues. After a FULL day of struggles and trouble shooting we discovered that the drive team had not CHANGED THE BATTERY ALL DAY......A quick battery change and we fine! Lesson learned.

[M. Lillis]

It is generally good practice to change batteries every match or every other match to avoid issues. Just make sure that you charge.

[MagiChau]

A common system that teams including ours use is cycling through 6 batteries before every match that will all be constantly hooked up to a charger if not on the robot.

[MrForbes]

That is a pretty common rookie mistake, but it can also "get" more experienced teams. First thing I do when we're having weird robot troubles is ask what the battery voltage is

[dcarr]

Our rookie year at LA we showed up with only two batteries and one charger. Naturally, this was quite a predicament, but we didn't know any better. 233 had their pit right next to ours and hooked us up with several batteries and chargers that kept us running for the rest of the event! Definitely a common pitfall and glad you figured it out on Thursday and not later :)

[Kevin Sevcik]

Lost the 2007 Great Lakes Regional for 1114 cause of poor battery discipline. True story.

[blueghoul]

A lot of communication problems are due to problems with battery voltage. Always remember to charge your batteries. Bring lots of them too!

[Moriarty]

Much better to find out today then halfway through tomorrow :)

[Ian Curtis]

I was so proud of our team today. After arriving late and being further delayed by leaving our paperwork at home we were still one of the first six teams to pass inspection at the Boilermaker Regional. After inspection we tested shooting on the practice field for about an hour with great success and then cued up for a match on the real field only to have extreme connection issues. After a FULL day of struggles and trouble shooting we discovered that the drive team had not CHANGED THE BATTERY ALL DAY......A quick battery change and we fine! Lesson learned.

One of THE most important things you can do is to have a list of all the things you need to do before a match written on the robot (this way your drive team cannot misplace it :D). Include things like removing the old battery, putting a new battery in, zip-tying the Anderson connectors together (robots hit hard!), resetting any mechanisms to stay within the sizing box, selecting the correct autonomous routine, etc.

[team4384]

...and don't forget to load the frisbee for autonomous mode!:cool:

[CalTran]

One of THE most important things you can do is to have a list of all the things you need to do before a match written on the robot (this way your drive team cannot misplace it :D). Include things like removing the old battery, putting a new battery in, zip-tying the Anderson connectors together (robots hit hard!), resetting any mechanisms to stay within the sizing box, selecting the correct autonomous routine, etc.
I feel like adding to this list is turn the dang thing on. This gets a few teams here and there every so often, and the field crew is usually good about letting you turn it on, but it's usually a pretty hard hit to dignity to do that "walk of shame."

^Yes, this happened to me today.

[cgmv123]

The default dashboard this year has a checklist built in. There isn't any programming involved to modify it either, you just change a text file. What could be easier?

[wildest_mentor]

My freshman year on Wildstang, I was loading up the cart with batteries before elims, and i put some on the cart that weren't fully charged. If the other alliance hadn't called a timeout, we wouldn't have realized it and would have lost the match.

[Lil' Lavery]

Lost the 2007 Great Lakes Regional for 1114 cause of poor battery discipline. True story.

Oh, so that's what happened. Always been curious about that. I also believe that's the last time 1114 and 67 have been on an elimination alliance together.

[BJC]

Just off the top of my head 1114, 987, and 67 were together IRI 2011.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Oh, so that's what happened. Always been curious about that. I also believe that's the last time 1114 and 67 have been on an elimination alliance together.Whole story is slightly more involved. Bad battery meant twitchy lost match and frantic trouble shooting serial connections and whatnot. Time was up when I realized it was just the battery, didn't ask for a timeout and sent the bot out without a bumper. Turns out the "battery strap" we had a mentor buy was a 1/2" wide elastic velcro strap. Bumper was the only thing holding the battery in. Opponent hits us, battery flies out, second lost match completes the most embarrassing day of my FRC career. Only good thing is I have a remarkably concise story of SO many mistakes people shouldn't make.

[Lil' Lavery]

Just off the top of my head 1114, 987, and 67 were together IRI 2011.

Was only factoring in official competition. IRI may be cool, but it's not actually a FRC event.