[Aidan S.]

Our team brings 10 batteries to regional competitions along with six chargers. A battery used for only one match before it is re-charged. We have two battery chargers that re-charge batteries from one match worth of use in about 15 minutes, so we always have a good supply of charged batteries, and after the eliminations at both of our regionals we had about 3 fully charged batteries left (we played 6 elimination matches in Waterloo and 7 at GTR).

In St. Louis we brought eight batteries with us. Since there were long gaps of time in between each qualifying match, there was enough time to fully charge a used battery before our next match. We always had six fully charged batteries ready.

During the elimination rounds we cycled through all eight batteries in the eight matched we played, but we made sure to charge each used battery in case we made it to Einstein. By the time we were playing the third final match, we had six batteries ready for Einstein. Unfortunately we lost and did not make it to Einstein, but we were ready if we were needed as a back-up robot.

Ten batteries is more than enough for any FIRST event as long as the team effectively charges and cycles through all of the batteries. We used an identification system for the charged and uncharged batteries, so we always knew which ones had the most charge.