[wgardner]

I don't see anything glaringly wrong with your pictures (though the way you're connecting red and black to each other is non-standard). And you're putting the wires in both ends, then connecting both ends, and hearing the click? If that's what you're doing, I don't know what else could be wrong. Are there any local teams you could work with in person?

I've attached a few (poor) photos of some of the powerpoles on one of our robots for comparison.