All teams need competition port sim

[coldabert]

I am sure this is a repeat thread but I strongly believe that this bears repeating. After the Chesapeake regional, I found many teams that did not know about their competition port. Last year I built the circuit to disable our robot and test autonomous with the real auto loop. The simple schematic can be found here:

http://www.ifirobotics.com/docs/competition-port-pinout-guide-reva.pdf

I put ours in a radio shack project box to make it look nice and not fall apart.

This is a great practice circuit for new electrical people to learn soldering and how to deal with those serial ports.

If you have any questions, PM me or email me at WhatYearIsIt@gmail.com

[Mike Hendricks]

Heh. If there is a team that hasn't made a competition dongle .. wow. We have 5 of them, and I have seen teams show up to events with a small box of them and give them away to teams who need one/lost or broke theirs.

www.Andymark.biz also sells them if soldering scares you.

[KTorak]

We went through digi-key and got the nice hoods and soldered up all the connections nicely using cat5 cable as our wiring. Our switches are incorporated right into our operator interace board.

[Alan Anderson]

Our switches are incorporated right into our operator interace board.
Keep in mind that the rules require that the field connector be plugged directly into the competition port on the OI. No "pigtails" or extensions are permitted.

[KTorak]

Keep in mind that the rules require that the field connector be plugged directly into the competition port on the OI. No "pigtails" or extensions are permitted.

I meant its right on the board where we have all of our joysticks and switches to contol the robot. We have a connector that we plug in to use our disable/autonomous switched to test things, then we unplug it to plug in the competition cable at the drivers station.

[Andy A.]

I think the AndyMark unit has it right on the money. I built a much less attractive dongle a while back.

A long cable and a clearly labeled and easy to actuate 'STOP/DISABLE' button is a huge benefit to safety. We've all been testing the robot and scrambled to disable it before something/someone gets damaged. It's also useful and comforting to have when demoing the robot, since this is typically when new drivers and the public try their hand at the controls. It's like the dual brake pedals on a drivers ed. car. This lets you stop the 'bot before things get out of control and lets you avoid a embarrassing and potentially dangerous situations where the robot goes flying off a stage (been there, done that!).

I like a dongle with a long cord. Thats just me.

Speaking of which, should Andy or Mark read this, how about your dongle in kit form? I know some teams take issue with buying prefabricated items they could otherwise make, even if they never end up doing it. If we could buy the dongle as a kit of all it's constituent parts with the fabrication (holes getting cut etc.) part done, it might make it more palatable. It gives teams a professional and reliable product and the satisfaction of having had a role in it's construction.

-Andy A.

[Jeff Pahl]

I lost track of the number of times that the pit announcer at Peachtree ended up asking if anyone had a dongle that xxxx team could borrow. It is such a necessity that I'm starting to think you should have to show it to the inspectors in order to pass.

[devicenull]

A long cable and a clearly labeled and easy to actuate 'STOP/DISABLE' button is a huge benefit to safety. We've all been testing the robot and scrambled to disable it before something/someone gets damaged. It's also useful and comforting to have when demoing the robot, since this is typically when new drivers and the public try their hand at the controls. It's like the dual brake pedals on a drivers ed. car. This lets you stop the 'bot before things get out of control and lets you avoid a embarrassing and potentially dangerous situations where the robot goes flying off a stage (been there, done that!).

I saw a team at UTC, (maybe RAGE?) That apparently had the disable switch wired up like a dead man's switch.. you let go, robot got disabled. That seemed pretty cool. That also seems more useful for demo's.. make sure that a team member is at the controls before little kids come up.

I was debating getting a magnetic one for the robot.. have it plugged into a digital input, and set all PWM's to neutral, then throw the code into a "while (1) {}" loop so it couldn't go anywhere :)

[Chriszuma]

I lost track of the number of times that the pit announcer at Peachtree ended up asking if anyone had a dongle that xxxx team could borrow. It is such a necessity that I'm starting to think you should have to show it to the inspectors in order to pass.
I agree. In fact, it's such a useful part that I'm kind of amazed that Innovation First doesn't simply package their robot controllers with one. To make a dongle like ours, all you need is a parallel port enclosure and two switches. For how much cost it would add to each KOP, it would really be a worthwhile addition.

[Rombus]

Funny someone should mention a deadman switch. Im going to attempt to build a competition port box that would have the 3 switches, and 2 or 3 connectable deadman handels. The deadman switches could be held by anyone near the robot or on either side of the robot, wire the switches up in series so if anyone lets go of there switch, the robot disables. 2 or 3 sets of eyes watching for safty issues is much better than one.

[Jeff Pahl]

I agree. In fact, it's such a useful part that I'm kind of amazed that Innovation First doesn't simply package their robot controllers with one. To make a dongle like ours, all you need is a parallel port enclosure and two switches. For how much cost it would add to each KOP, it would really be a worthwhile addition.

That was exactly my first thought. However then I rememberd what coldabert said about it being a great learning project for new members. I have to agree there. I'd much rather have a project they can throw away and start over if the soldering doesn't quite work out, than have them learn on something that needs to ship and take the abuse of being on the robot.

[Biff]

Switchs are a good idea.... Double checking it's construction and wiring before letting any one plug it into you OI is a better idea. We lost a OI in our second year to do a bunch of stripped wires and an eager programmer. 100 plus dollars later Our OI was fixed and back from the IFI doctors. There are pins in the OI that should never be connected to each other.

[Mike Hendricks]

That was exactly my first thought. However then I rememberd what coldabert said about it being a great learning project for new members. I have to agree there. I'd much rather have a project they can throw away and start over if the soldering doesn't quite work out, than have them learn on something that needs to ship and take the abuse of being on the robot.

Just make sure you or someone else carefully checks it before plugging it into the OI .. or else you might let the magic smoke out.