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Originally Posted by Mike Martus
This concerns me because they seem to be saying the two new ones are the only ones you can use. That will prove to be a major problem for most teams.
The battery chargers cannot keep up with the use of the robots. With the increased number of seeding matches ( I hope) due to 3 team alliances there is no way they will be charged in time.
Add to that the Finals when you run several matches in a short time span and you have a real problem.
Several years ago when this same rule surfaced FIRST found out very quick it was not practical and changed to allow teams to use additional batteries as long as they were 100% identical.
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At kickoff, one of the speakers mentioned energy as a constraint this year, along with time, materials, etc.
If you treat energy as a constraint, it is certainly possible for a single 6 amp charger to keep up. If you design your machine to run the motors continuously at almost stall (low efficiency) with the compressor always on, of course you will have problems with energy management. Taking that same robot and gearing things down and run the compressor less, you'll use a lot less energy.
Over the past few years, I've seen people almost brag about how their battery makes it through one match. To me that's easy, what's worth bragging about is making the battery last.
Last year, the team I worked with won a regional and our battery would last 6 matches. It isn't necessary to burn through the battery to do well.
Whether or not FIRST intended the battery to be a constraint this year, I think everybody should take the time to consider energy when designing their robots.