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Driver Station Suggestions
My team is developing a new driver station for use in the upcoming seasons. In my knowledge our team has not had a formal driver's station that goes on the shelf so we just carried the laptop and controller to the driver's area. I have seen many different driver station with different layouts. I was wondering what features are useful, useless, or nice to have. Thank You
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Re: Driver Station Suggestions
Velcro on the bottom to match the driver's station. Might save you from having to dive to catch the board during a match.
Light weight. You do have to carry the board. Handles of some sort. You do have to carry the board. |
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I definitely agree with EricH on the board being lightweight and having handles. I would also add:
a. make sure the handles are comfortable to carry (we've made that mistake) b. if this person who will primarily be carrying it has a small arm span, don't make it so long that they can't carry it (read: i was short drive coach with short arms) c. i would suggest attaching the pieces (joysticks, laptop, etc) to the board in some way for stability. We normally use Velco so we can pull stuff off and stick it back on. d. aesthetics can be nice. We've use 80-20 on our robots a lot so our drivers console uses 80-20. The best picture I could find of our 2013 one (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater) |
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One suggestion I had here was build your driver station and carry it around all day at school, setting it up for each class. If you can move it down the hall and get it ready before the bell rings, you got a winner. To which I should add -- carry it around safely all day, and not end up as a bulky deadweight.
Some students finally finished our driver station for this year's competition. It was a plastic suitcase (like a professional camera case type) with foam inside cut out in the shapes of the controllers. A small laptop was attached inside, on the top part, so it could hinge open, with a connector to the field made thru the wall. A nice "W" plate in the back (facing the field). Velcro on the bottom. |
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I agree to the lightweight and portable aspect but i think there is one bigger thing you need to be sure of.
Make your driver station is useable and comfortable to use for driving the robot at competitions. If you have a driver station that you don't like because you aren't comfortable with using it, is a bigger issue. Ex tilting your joy stick (the whole thing) forward to make it easier for you will benefit you a lot. A driver station that prevents you from getting disconnected from your robot will help too. Sounds silly? How can your driver station prevent you from being disconnected from your robot? Well ask 1114. Last year at GTR West in Finals 2 2056 ran into the driver station wall, the ethernet became disconnected and they were their sitting died on the field. This year they designed a simple driver station that would stop that from happening again. They put foam around the ethernet, and joy stick controller plugs so that any impact or small movement wouldn't unplug the cables. Also another thing that we liked this year was that we put a strap on it, that way we don't have to hold it, it is just being held by a strap around your neck. We used a guitar strap for ours, and it works really well. |
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Use a better laptop than the classmate if possible.
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The driver station that my team has used for the past two years is a piece of carbon fiber, which was donated by one of our main sponsors, with our laptop and joysticks velcroed on. This is the lightest, nicest looking driver station we have had.
If it is small enough and light enough you shouldn't need any handles, but thats your choice. The main thing to remember is that it has to work. One thing to do is ask your drivers to see what they want/ like. They are the ones who will be using it the most so if they don't like it then it doesn't do you much good. Just something to keep in mind. |
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And, as EricH said earlier, make it light! I've also always wanted to try to make a folding driver station so it can easily be fit through doorways. |
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Our driver station was made during the week before our first competition. It was a simple piece of 3/4 plywood cut to 30" by 8". We use some old Logitech controllers, driver on the left, operator on the right, each with a piece of Velcro on the bottom of the left handle. To carry the station we made 2 handles from scrap extruded aluminum that were bolted together and then filed smoothly to avoid any cuts. The computer was attached to the station by two large pieces of Velcro that kept it firmly in place, yet not too much so that the computer could be removed if need be. Another thing about our wooden driver station, it only took an hour to cut the wood, give it a quick sanding, spray paint the top white, spray paint a stencil of our logo on each of the controller spots (color coded for the driver and operator controllers) and then attach everything by Velcro, and bam! Driver station :)
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Re: Driver Station Suggestions
If you velcro down the standing joysticks (as opposed to storing Xbox controllers in velcro loops), be cognizant of the velcro's affect on joystick movement. Depending on the joystick, mapping and the driving style, the slop of the velcro can non-negligibly affect responsiveness. Sometimes it might have a positive smoothing effect; sometimes you see drivers slamming joysticks around while the entire thing lifts 1.5" off the baseboard. A lot of the fast DT drivers I see that use joysticks will have them rigidly mounted and/or sandwiched in between layers of material (often polycarb) for this reason.
We've grown the prefer an old briefcase, modified to stay within the 12" when open, though we're still working on improving it. Ours holds the laptop, drive team binder (scripting options, documentation), the 2 Xbox controllers, spare cables (Ethernet and the Xbox adapters), and the hardware for our driver's head's up display. It's also nice to be able to close it all up and latch for transport. On last check, make sure your laptop and any other electronics can vent and cool properly. Laptops are not big fans of velcro over their vents. (We didn't actually learn this the hard way, but we picked it up from the robot side of things.) |
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I once played with the idea of getting a sheet metal shop to cut and bend a single sheet of aluminum into a drive station, but never made concrete designs for it. Maybe I'll CAD it up now that I have some free time. |
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If you'd like, I would have no problem giving you my CAD files. Just let me know. ![]() |
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We have something that looks cool, but isn't the most practical one out there. On the other hand, our root cart accommodates the driver station under the robot, so it's okay.
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All the feedback that is given is great and will definitely factor into the new driver station. I just have one more question about this. The group I am working with wants to have alot of buttons off the controller and on the board. These auxiliary buttons could be useful like for an e-stop but how many do you really need to incorporate into the deign? The new station is being built with practicality in the future in mind and our team in the past years has used only a driver. This year we used a joystick but I think our team prefers controllers.
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While reusing the board would have its advantages, its also nice to give flexibility to your drive team on how they want to control the robot, which is why we don't build ours in till Week 5 of build season, when the control interface has been decided upon. (Anecdote: In 2012 our driver asked for tank drive because thats what he was always comfortable with. Less than a minute into driving the partly-completed bot around week 5, he turned to me [head programmer] "I changed my mind. Arcade." It wasn't a difficult switch, but it shows why its hard to design a user interface without the item you are controlling). |
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Get a project box from RadioShack. If you get a decent-sized one, it should cover all the buttons you'd need (say, a 12"x9"x3" box). If you design a space for the box--including a cable routing to an interface to the laptop--and just change that box every year, then you should be OK. Now, I do wonder why you want ANOTHER E-stop--there's one set in the driver station on the laptop (I think it's the spacebar), at the events there's a Big Red Button in the driver's station that will immediately disable your robot for the match. But that's just me. |
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I definitely wouldn't want another auto disable button! |
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Wow on team 2950 our driver station was a thick piece of either plexi-glass or thick plastic. Then we Velcro'd our classmate and joysticks to it. For the handle we used the Classmate handle for the laptop since magical leprechauns enchanted the Velcro to be super strong to support a laptop and joysticks if held by the classmate handle
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Between regionals this year I went about designing a new driver station. It was designed to be used year to year and just swap out the polycarbonate piece on the left each year for our custom switches and controls (we like to use a control panel and a controller). The right side holds either a controller or a joystick depending on what we want, with the controller being stashed inside the drivers station during transport and set on top during competition. Also, we put a slight angle on the switch panel which was a really nice touch and made it easier and more comfortable to use.
![]() I can share CAD models with anyone who is interested. |
Re: Driver Station Suggestions
It's been a while for me, but my co-driver(s) and I in 2007 and 2008 were all ~6ft plus tall, so our driver station had almost a foot of height to it, to get the joysticks up to a height where my forearms could be horizontal so I had better control. Perhaps not so much of a consideration these days with all the handheld gamepads, but definitely keep ergonomics in mind - the more comfortable (or at least, the less awkward) you can make it to use, the more effectively you'll be able to use it.
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We haven't used buttons in a while, but our use has varied widely. I think I had 8? big ones laid out linearly, and even another layout would've been weird for me (adjustable, nut weird). For us, there's no logical way to accommodate all these options while also maintaining the qualities we'd like otherwise; so we intend on having a perennial OC while understanding the operator can request a unique one any given year. There are cost, tome, etc limits we set, but within them it's amazing how night of an impact your OC can have on your performance. |
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Here's a picture of our driver station if you want them. Personally, I think our driver station looks pretty cool :D
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http://www.igknighters.com/Robotics/...l/DSC_0282.jpg When we get to the drivers station we just open the case and take off the lid. The joysticks are velcroed to the top of the lid so that we set it down and have a nice joystick set up all ready. Then we take the game pad out of the case and open up the laptop and we are good to go. All of our controls (except E-Stop) are on either the joysticks, gamepad or both so we never have to create auxiliary buttons. |
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