Cart Is Pit?
 

For the past summer i have been thinking about what would help my team while bring at the competition.

In order to help my team my friends and I have developed a concept of "Cart is Pit". Meaning that the cart will house must of all the tools/supplies that are usually in the pit. So when you go down to the floor if you need a tool it would be with your robot before and after the rounds and their would be no need for fetchers.

Carts basic components:

Electrical

I had design this system to have the robot batteries being charged on the cart at all times even when your not near a Ac power source. To go along with that it provides a AC and DC lines for charging laptops and running some electrical tools depending on cart battery size and inverter being used.

Safety
spare glasses, ear plugs, fire extinguisher, and first aid kit.

Tools
all necessary tools for the robot with the addition of some that others may be use if room is present.

Supplies
Spare electronics material
pre made parts
pneumatics stuff

Programing
Computers would have a multipurpose port that will allow the programmer to program their robot and not be next to it. (on the controller is prog and reset pins that would be in the cable to the programmer's station allowing him to control things with out getting in the way of the mechanical team).

Air
Built in large tank that will be full all the time.
robot pressure will be equalized with this tank then pumped independently allowing for a quick pump.
air could also be used in cleaning off dusk and etc.

If all this could be done then your 10x10 foot pit would have more room making it safer. Also everything you would need would be with the robot except for big tools such as mills and etc.

Please post more ideas, however don't say anything about a sound system because FIRST has ruled against it.

More Ideas

The last question is if all this is legal or illegal

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

something that allows you to work under the robot would be nice. (maybe a small aluminum frame with 2 foot tall legs to hold it up while a team mate goes under to work on it.)

this is really a great design, one thing I would worry about though is its manueverability. We did not have a good cart last year but it was better than nothing(it was a furniture mover with some plywood bolted onto it.

thanks, vivek

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Ditto to vivek's post. I've seen multi-purpose carts that have the ability to lift the robot, or have some kind of ramp that it sits on. Reminds me that I need to start working on some type of electrical system for us, with the battery, laptops, and whatnot. And find a canopy to cover the pit.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

also remember the cart has to be able to cross those cable cover things so making it heavy would be not be the best idea

...forest

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

I can not speak to this year's rules, but your air tank would have been illegal for the last several years.

Also, beware of making this thing so big that it can not be carried up and down a set of stairs. Load-in/out is almost always a concern at many events.

Mike

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

True i forgot all about those things.
hmmmmmmm how to make sure it would be light enough but also strong enough while keeping these features?:confused: :confused:

Are you sure about the air system?

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Yup. See <R101> The compressor may be mounted on the ROBOT, or it may be left off the ROBOT and used
to pre-charge compressed air in the storage tanks prior to bringing the ROBOT onto the
playing field. Off-board compressors must be controlled and powered by the ROBOT. The
only difference between an on- and off-board compressor is that the off-board compressor is
physically removed from the ROBOT. Note: the intent of this rule is to permit teams to take
advantage of the weight savings associated with keeping the compressor off-board. But
using the compressor off-board of the ROBOT does NOT permit non-compliance with any
other applicable rules.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Edit: What Cory said... :-)

if i remember correctly, the only way to charge your on board tanks was via the KOP air compressor. If you didn't have to have the compressor mounted on the robot but you had to use the battery on board the robot to power the compressor.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

You may want to include a light for those arenas that don't have great lighting. I know at St. Louis you would have to bring a flashlight with you in order to do repairs during eliminations.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

In regards to the programming thing, you can actually program the robot to hit its own PROG/RESET pins using the robot controller's digital outputs. Then you just need to add a bit of code to recognize a command from the programmer's computer to make the robot controller go into program mode/reset itself.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Well i guess than the air compressor unit would just be stored in the side till it needs to be used.
As for the programing thing is is a mechanical switch or virtual switch over the programing cable.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Edit: Peter beat me to it. He needs to seriously get IM. :p

Peter, what about having two compressors? The KOP one for charging the robot, and the big compressor for the big tank? Having air for cleaning and whatnot is still pretty handy.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

@geeknerd99

I think that those little canisters of compressed air are really handy for getting dust off and cleaning. Also you can use them to cool down things by holding them upside down(engines and such.) Im not sure how good that is for the engines but it might help.

-vivek

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

What about air powered goodness? Like drills? And just the general bling factor of having air onboard cart?

And it's not just compressed air in those cans. They actually make me pretty woozy if I spray too much in an area that pretty much isn't outside.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

I have always wondered about air tanks and what not... I have also wondered about fog machines... are you allowed fog machines?? (obviously not for practical use) but compressed air would be wonderful to clean off work space at the end of the day (or during the day for that matter)

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

I JUST HAD A BRAIN FART!!!!! who saw the mythbusters episode with the hovercrafts? you think 6 leaf blowers would lift 600 pounds?

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

man that is a good idea lol....build one like adam's lilypad it would be quite stable lol :D

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Didn't see that, but I saw team 1006's 2006 robot moving device: 1 leaf blower was enough to lift their robot at full weight. Need I say more? (Though you would have the directing problem, but that's what the other drive team members are for.)

Also, remember to put space for the operator interface. The OI is (can be) a very awkward piece of equipment, if it's long or in multiple pieces. It's easier to put it on the cart if possible.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Compressed air is good for blowing chips and junk out of the robot.

However, those little pancake air compressors (which are just about the only thing small enough that you could fit into a cart) will not run any air tools for more than a couple seconds before they lose so much pressure as to basically be ineffective.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

"I had design this system to have the robot batteries being charged on the cart at all times even when your not near a Ac power source. To go along with that it provides a AC and DC lines for charging laptops and running some electrical tools depending on cart battery size and inverter being used."

I reference to the above information, be careful about doing this as we tried to do the same thing on a carrier that we built on year and we can to find out that the setup burned up three battery chargers running thru a AC to DC converter because the wave signal was different that the wave from the AC outlet. Just a thought from the past.:ahh: :yikes:

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

MrHance You have my Diagram slightly mistaken When it said "AC input" it meant only from a wall outlet. So the Three batteries would only charge from AC if it was present But when AC is not present then 3 relay would trip. One in the inverter so that the DC would be converter to AC and the two DC relays that would switch the batteries charging from the AC to DC converters to a DC to DC converter providing a nearly no energy loss system.

If you talking about inverters and their waves i have heard of these two "pure" and "synthetic" i currently own 3 (2 pure 1000 watt inverters, and one 400 synthetic). I plan to use the one of the pure ones since my DAD is a electrical engineer who told me too and for these parts came out of an ambulance so i hope they would be up to standards.

inverters companies
(pure)
Vanner (+ using this one)
Tripplite
(synthetic)
Cobra

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

We did something like this and used it these past two years. Our cart had oversized pneumatic tires, places to charge 4 batteries, and a series of compartments for storing tools, cables, etc...

By no means did it replace the pit, but it was nice for transporting a compressor for charging our accumlators, as well as tether cables, programming cables, and of course a few zipties.

I don't know that I would recommend the chargers. I don't know if we ever used that capability once after the initial regional. Usually we just have our battery farm nested underneath our table in the pit so it's not that big of a deal.

The other hassle with using a multifunctional cart is that it is going to be much higher off the ground in most circumstances, due to the need for pnuematic tires so tools aren't flying around. We have had troubles in the past with 5' robots and getting them underneath doors.

We ended up having two carts this year. We used our multifunctional at Wisconsin and then we made a VERY simple cart using the kitbot frame and a few casters which we used at Toronto, Atlanta, and IRI. The simple cart was preferred for its easy maneuverability and overall, it was just easier to transport and ship with the robot.

I can see the practicality in building a pit-cart, but in my opinion as long as you're organized and plan ahead, it isn't really much of a benifit. It was nice at times to have the compressor or tether cables right there at times, but like I said, if you plan ahead, you won't really need it.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

@T3_1565

fog machines make fog from water. water plus electronics are bad. :P

-vivek

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

True enough... but does it say anything about not having them??? cause our team has a plan for one,(it will be controlled, obviously, for the safety of other bots and our own).

Thanks for that by the way. I forgot about electronics lmao. I will have a chat with the designers about it.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Regarding all of this compressor hub-bub :p

The intent of the rule is so that teams don't fill tanks onboard the robot without having the nasson shutoff valve controlling the compressor. This makes total sense, even if the compressor is not onboard the robot.

Using a compressor for non-robot uses (such as blowing out dust and such) should be absolutley no problem, so long as that compressor isn't used to pump up tanks onboard the robot.

A good example of this is the duct tape rule. Just because you can't use duct tape on the robot, doesnt mean you can't use it on the cart.

My 2 cents,
Jacob

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

And nothing says that you can't have the robot's compressor on the cart, provided that you hook it into the system properly (legally) to fill the tanks between matches. Why have two when you can have one?

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

The KOP compressor would be all but useless for anything beyond charging the cylinders on your robot. I doubt you'd find it useful for even blowing chips off the robot.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

its not the KOP compressor that will be blowing but the stored air in the 24 in length, 6.5 in diameter steel air tank. This part was salvaged of the air horn system of an ambulance.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Well now that we have talked a lot about air. Please post more ideas on the other fields if you could. I would like to see what others have been planning and also what ideas of mine could be improved.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

That will work. But it'll probably take 20 minutes for the KOP compressor to charge that tank. I think you'd be better off with a second small industrial compressor to power your non-robot air needs.

Re: Cart Is Pit?
 

Team Resistance (86) has an excellent robot carrier/toolbox integrated cart. It is known as the O-Haul. Yes, it does have two level system for raising and lower during two different modes of transportation. Our tool box has saved our rears and other teams in the competition for the last four years now. We love it! Feel free to ask me for more information on the O-Haul.

-Josh Simpson