Powered Robot Carts

[LeelandS]

Creating a Powered Robot Cart would be a great project. However, it should be just that, a project. Having a flashy robot cart (in my mind) would be great for demonstrations and presentation, if it looks nice enough to be driven in front of people. Perhaps even give your audience a chance to drive it. It seems like something that could be a huge hit.

However, its use at competition would be extremely limited. Keeping it powered could be a real pain, especially while making sure your robot is adequately well-off, battery wise. Secondly, most carts are big enough as is. If you have an even bigger cart driving through the pits, it would be hard to make the necessary turns, and probably too easy to bump someone standing by their pits. Getting bumped by a regular cart is a shock enough, imagine this big ol' motorized cart running by you. I wouldn't feel comfortable. Then, as Ed and other said, your cart has to be easily movable by the field crew, as well as needs to be quick to get on and off the field. I just don't see how a motorized cart can fulfill both of those things.

In my opinion, building a powered cart could be a great experience for a team, and great learning experience, and a great project overall. But there place at competitions... Well, I don't see why they need to have a place at competitions. If your robot is too heavy to be moves on a manual cart... you have bigger problems to deal with.

-Hope this helps,
Leeland