Alternative to Battery Beak device?

[weberr]

Look at it this way. Time and time again, our team would have a battery failure or worst yet put in a dead battery in a highly competitive OCCRA competition only to blow the match. Then came the Battery Beak. Since purchasing one, we have never ever had a failure due to a battery nor the performance of a battery going bad.

Now for the dollars and cents.

You pay $5000 for FIRST. If you are in Michigan, you get two districts with 12 qualification matches for a total of 24. 5k divided by 24 is roughly $200. So you are spending $200 to compete in a 2 min 15 sec match. If the battery beak keeps you from blowing a match due to a poor performance or bad battery, isn't the cost worth it?

We also use a battery beak to help us understand the power usage of our robot in it's development to make sure we are not draining the bat too fast.