Quote:
Originally Posted by maxnz
If you were to buy a second roborio, I'd buy the rest of the control system too. PDP, VRM, PCM, radio, and some motor controllers. FIRST Choice and the virtual KOP are good places to get these closer to and during the build season for free. (I would even use this year's voucher from CTRE (before April 30) to get more Talon SRXs or Victor SPs if you use either of those.)
As for the RSL and breaker switch, you will get another in next year's KOP, but if you want more than 2, you can probably ask some teams near you that have been around for a few years, as they would most likely be willing to let you have one or two (they pile up quickly).
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^^ And RSL's are extremely expensive to buy new for some reason.
I definitely recommend the second, or even third, RoboRio and control system. Depends on how your team is set up, of course, but we had many subteams vying for time on the robot(s): the drive team, the autonomous team, the controls software team, the vision processing team, and of course fab/electrical wanted to keep working on stuff.
To the OP, have you thought about your longer term strategy for how your team is going to run? It's great that you found some money and there's a long list of things you could spend it on, but to spend it wisely you should have a plan for what your program is going to look like over the next few years. An obvious question, for example, is where you work out of, how much room there is, how much storage space you have. You obviously shouldn't buy a mill if you don't have a place to put it.
When my team started we decided pretty early on that we would always try to build a practice robot in addition to our competition robot. Knowing this helped us set our fundraising/sponsorship targets, and guided us to purchase our first RoboRio control system early in the fall. This helped because we could then start teaching students how to use it, knowing that a complete second system was coming in the rookie KOP. And of course they are now both in use in two identical robots.