Cool Control Boxes

[R.C.]

I want to create a new control but all my ideas come back to a really heavy and not so good looking box. What were the coolest control boxes made this year, pics

[s_forbes]

I like 1538's, here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30561). It matches their robot too, mainly in that it is rediculously awesome.

I'm not sure how big next year's opperator interface is going to be, though (has the final version of it been figured out yet?). You may not be able to get away with such a slim design.

[Billfred]

1293 used this one in 2007 (and possibly 2008):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3043/2571912920_2742ccb7ed.jpg (http://flickr.com/photos/billfred/2571912920/)

1293 has access to a lot of sheetmetal fabrication tools, so this was right up their alley. (The orange panel flipped up to reveal the OI.)

Ours (as in 1618's) was simpler for a lot of reasons (namely that we were short on time and unsure of our control needs), but I think it still looked pretty nice all things considered:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2571089003_d33548a028.jpg (http://flickr.com/photos/billfred/2571089003/)

We have a table saw, a bandsaw, a chopsaw, a drill press, hand tools, and (because I was a USC student at the time) a plotter. We cut a piece of plywood and lexan to size, printed the board background (note the matching Capital Robotics logo--vector art is your friend), and put clear tape around the edges both to hold the lexan down and to keep us from catching an odd splinter. We could refine it further (something better for the edges would be nice, as would dressing up the bottom), but the style-to-effort factor was right for us this year.

[Joe Ross]

148 (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30598) had a great one this year

[Akash Rastogi]

Ours was pretty sick this year. Throttle and Logitech Extreme 3d Pro joystick (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/gaming/pc_gaming/joysticks/devices/291&cl=us,en). And the fold out laptop in the center was used for diagnostics and stuff of the sort w/ a program and GUI made by the programmers. I don't think we really used it much though. But still..very cool haha

The lit one is from 2005
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/c83/c8313ea3ac800b3ee742508351a221f5_l.jpg
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/a81/a814e27105380be7a5f4b616b49a5644_l.jpg
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/5de/5de2f9381ffc4153d35b93d7b7fd36a1_l.jpg

[Herodotus]

I don't have a picture of the whole board but team 910's centerpiece is the Weighted Companion Joystick. The board itself is also pretty cool so I'll have to get pictures. As you can see it is made of riveted aluminum bars with some lexan that we frosted covering it up.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/31109

[MrForbes]

148 (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30598) had a great one this year

Not much different from ours....

http://photos.project1726.org/albums/userpics/10009/normal_IMG_5691.JPG

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Here's ours:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/spinmunky/Robotics%20stuff/100_0775.jpg

Its really light and folds up into a nice little package that can be carried over the shoulder. Really comfortable to lug around.

All the wires fit into the box. This is the one from '07. We've perfected it a little since then.

[Mike Nawrot]

A few more pics of MORT's control box from this year. As awesome as the laptop idea was, we never actually used it, and it wouldn't have been useful on the field at all. But the control box itself was very nice, with flush mounted charging and accessory ports on the back, visible OI, and the most seamless control mounting we've ever done. Also, the whole top is hinged for easy access to the electronics. Minus the archaic laptop, it would have been fairly light.

[Branden Ghena]

What is the control on the right? Is it a slide potentiometer? Where did you get it? How well did it respond? Sorry for the twenty questions. :D

[NickE]

Pink's control board from this year was pretty sick

Closed (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30631) / Open (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30632)

[Mike Nawrot]

What is the control on the right? Is it a slide potentiometer? Where did you get it? How well did it respond? Sorry for the twenty questions. :D

The control on the right is the lift/roller control. We made it from scratch (I use "we" as a general term for mort. it was really just the programmers and electrical guys) using a regular rotary pot. It self-centered using an interesting spring/lever system (can't entirely describe it in concise terms. I'm also not entirely sure how it was made/obtained. I was busy building an end effector). The lever would raise and lower our lift, and control the direction and speed of the rollers when the button on the side was depressed. The three buttons next to it were the automatic heights: pick-up, hurdle, knock height. We didn't use those much. As for response.. From what our drivers said and the handful of times I operated the arm during systems checks, the controls responded perfectly fine. There were slight issues with the pot drifting towards the end of the season, but if I recall correctly, that was easily adjusted.

Hope that answers all your questions.

Some other interesting bits of information:
The joystick was originally USB, but we didn't feel like messing with the chicklet, so the electrical guys disassembled it and wired it to a regular game port. The four buttons on top of the joystick were wired in series to the power button on the laptop, so you could turn it on using the joystick. There are ports on the back for a keyboard OR mouse, charging, Ethernet, and OI power, along with access to the competition port on the OI.

The GUI was pretty awesome, but I don't know much of anything about it.

[Nica F.]

Ours (Team 4) was pretty simple, I made it myself. It's easy to do but at the same time really clean and nice looking.

http://i27.tinypic.com/116pfcx.jpg

Ours doesnt have lights or anything, but if you're looking to make something cool, clean and easy i can definitely tell you how we made ours. It was really lightweight too :)

For a simple design, we got a good amount of compliments

[UndergroundVoid]

Well the past year my team had a welded 2" diameter tube square with diamond plate. in retrospect not so light but as my friends said just add wheels and you could use it as a skate board.

But thinking about the future with the way how thing are going with the new control system combined with the compatibility of new game controllers and etc your going to see interfaces that take a respectively small area and have almost no weight. anything is possibly it all depends on what you want.

[Pavan Dave]

What do you mean by control box?

The OI or RC. Our team called all electrical stuff 'controls' and thus we refer to everything as Brain or OI. Control box means something completely different to me..

I think green and I think 2005 - [looking for picture]

BUT if you're thinking OI this is my favorite -
http://ccisd.net/StudentProj/past/04-05/images/2005build/build13.jpg
(the joysticks went inside)

[The Megan 2207]

We made ours out of 80/20. It folded up and had casters on the bottom. We also made a slide-out handle. We based our design off of a rolling suitcase.

Unfolded:
http://www.whitebearlakerobotics.com/photos/2008big/build/DSCN1086.jpg

Folded:
http://www.whitetbearlakerobotics.com/photos/2008big/build/IMG_9402.jpg

[UndergroundVoid]

Wow Big image almost fills up my 24 inch screen please consider making it smaller for others.
Scratch that it is going over both my 24 inch and 14 inch monitors!

[Bomberofdoom]

If I can get a pic from the regional, i'll show you the coolest/ most awesome/amazing/etc. controller ever! I'm 99% sure you're gonna' say "wow/cool/sweet".:cool:

[R.C.]

Do you know what team has that cool control box?

[Cow Bell Solo]

Do you know what team has that cool control box?

What control box, the one a couple posts up with the super huge picture is team 2207's

[R.C.]

If I can get a pic from the regional, i'll show you the coolest/ most awesome/amazing/etc. controller ever! I'm 99% sure you're gonna' say "wow/cool/sweet".:cool:

This one.

[Eldarion]

How about this one: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/36d/36d1e552430b6749d7eae2ce6190d197_l.jpg :rolleyes:

[IKE]

This was the first year for us using handheld controllers with the Chiclet (sp?). A couple of our team members made a Poly-Carb suitcase, and the controller and controllers were placed inside. They then threw on the traditional honeycomb and I think it looks pretty good.

Note, we learned the hard way to put velcro on the bottom of the controls. A high speed ram at nationals wiped out our controls for an entire match. NOT GOOD.

[typharn91]

ill try to get some pics to post of the oi i made last year its pretty cool its very stylish but the wire was a little not pretty because it was the first thing i made but it looks real nice and got a bunch of compliments at regionals and some at nationals

[Akash Rastogi]

This is what I built for MORT for Lunacy. The sliding action is just using a CD drive that I removed a lock from and attached a piece of polycarb onto. Built in extra USB ports as well for the Driver Station. All the wireless stuff was inside too. Sheet metal bottom to ground the DS with, polycarb panels, and 80/20 standoffs. Also a separate battery pack for the lights and whatnot.
http://vimeo.com/3234826

[bear24rw]

MORT 2008 - never really ended up using the built in laptop but it was fun to work on

http://lookpic.com/i/693/SEE5k15Z.jpeg

http://lookpic.com/i/821/BQBgkMS.jpeg