[FTC]: Samantha - installation recommendations

[Coach Doug]

My team just competed this past weekend - we implemented all the recommendations per the FTC email blast - but we had the pleasure of watching a scoring/active robot become a paperweight.

I am looking for tips/pictures of how other teams who HAVE competed and experienced no issues. Practicing on your own field does simulate the bumps from the field obstacles but not the robot bumping etc.

Overall, I like the Samantha but losing two matches due to it is tough to handle.

Also, is there a way to monitor the charge on the 12vdc battery?

[wilsonmw04]

Greetings Doug,

Sorry to hear you had trouble over the weekend. How do you know it was Sam that went out on you? We saw a few communications issues in the large dark tent that was the Richmond Qualifier, but none of them were from the Samantha module. 2 of them were from the NXT freezing and the other was due to a bad power connection.

[Coach Doug]

I don't believe so - never had a " frozen " nxt during 4 yrs of FLL nor last year with the ftc bluetooth connection. I am basing my impressions probably more on urban legend than fact - I do know that there are many out there who have experienced this and more who have not. The keys are solid usb connection, robust power wire attachments, power > x volts, and i would assume a solid surface to connect to also.

We can improve the solid surface to connect to - probably has some diving board effect but not much - after that I am grasping at straws on what to tell the team implement to avoid this next time.

[biojae]

Originally Posted by Coach Doug

I am looking for tips/pictures of how other teams who HAVE competed and experienced no issues.

We mounted ours horizontal and as high as we could.
And as far as I know, we had no problems at the LA tournament yesterday.

Originally Posted by Coach Doug

Also, is there a way to monitor the charge on the 12vdc battery?

The NXT screen displays the following information on its screen when using the required programming templates:

Line 1: [Wait for start | TeleOp Running | Auton Running]
Line 2: 
Line 3: Ext Batt: (The 12v battery voltage)
Line 4: NXT Batt: (The NXT's battery voltage)
Line 5: FMS Msgs: (The # of FMS messages recieved)
Line 6: Teleop FileName:
Line 7: (Teleop_FileName.rxe)

If you want to know it in your code then it is (at least in robotc)

externalBatteryAvg / (float) 1000;