[Andy A.]

I would like to see a super dongle, that is finished out in a nice breakout box with clearly laid out and labeled switches that allow for autonomous, disable, extra channels and, heres the biggie, power.

Right now, if you want to use the robot away from an outlet, you need to use a bunch of 9 volt batteries and a radio shack barrel connector. It works, but it seems like a really ugly and inefficient solution. And you use lots of 9v batteries and those buggers are expensive!

If someone could put together a project box that had all that, and enough battery power to run the OI and radio for say 15-20 minutes, I would would be very happy. I'm not to worried about getting all the channels, or knowing exactly what the OI is trying to say the the AC, but being able to conveniently power and disable the OI would be worlds better then the current mess of a dongle we use (ACK! which switch is disable? Crap! that was auto! ACK!).

While I was thinking about my ideal dongle switch, I thought that while training new drivers, it would be fun and maybe even useful to flip a switch and simulate a faliure on the bot. Perhaps knock out one side of a drive train, or simulate a breaker tripping. I see a lot of drivers who panic and don't understand why the bot 'won't go'. If they had some experenice, they might understand that a breaker has over heated, and needs to cool.

I guess thats more of a software deal, but any thoughts on that?

-Andy A.