Custom Drive Stations

[rlounds]

Does anyone know of any teams using custom drive stations?
If so, how do they look and function?
I'm interested to know as our team is working on one of our own and some ideas of what other teams use.

[ZamericaZ]

Not sure if this is what you mean but Here are some picks of the drivers console we used this year.

As for other teams with custom ones that stood out to me all I can think of are teams: 27 Rush and 3641 the Flying Toasters, I'll reach out to toaster's driver to try and get a pic for you. 27s folds ontop of itself to store the controllers and laptop, I never had a good chance to look closely at it i could explain it better, hopefully somebody is able to.

[JohnFogarty]

If you mean control board here's what we made for ours. Documentation and code included.

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...31&oe=57CF8E73
https://github.com/GarnetSquardon490...-Control-Board

[hotwheel326]

This is our second year constructing a custom driver station. 1250's Driver Station

[bstew]

This year, Team Neutrino redid their driver station. It is 36" long and 2.5 inches tall. I think it is 11 inches deep. We made it out of 1/8 in Aluminum for the top and bottom plates with 1/8 in polycarbonate flanged pieces between them. We have singly addressable LEDs (from Adafruit) controlled by an Arduino.




If you have any questions or want CAD, feel free to ask.

[messer5740]

Originally Posted by bstew

This year, Team Neutrino redid their driver station. It is 36" long and 2.5 inches tall. I think it is 11 inches deep. We made it out of 1/8 in Aluminum for the top and bottom plates with 1/8 in polycarbonate flanged pieces between them. We have singly addressable LEDs (from Adafruit) controlled by an Arduino.




If you have any questions or want CAD, feel free to ask.

We'd love the CAD! Just email us at robotics@cwnchs.org
Also- I think those LED would give me a even bigger headache after I'm done driving the bot hahah

Also- we just use plexiglass with a rev extrusion rod frame, giving us a cool look and a stable place for a computer.

[ctt956]

Originally Posted by ZamericaZ

Not sure if this is what you mean but Here are some picks of the drivers console we used this year.

As for other teams with custom ones that stood out to me all I can think of are teams: 27 Rush and 3641 the Flying Toasters, I'll reach out to toaster's driver to try and get a pic for you. 27s folds ontop of itself to store the controllers and laptop, I never had a good chance to look closely at it i could explain it better, hopefully somebody is able to.

Nice! I like the green LED lit translucent controllers!

Originally Posted by hotwheel326

This is our second year constructing a custom driver station. 1250's Driver Station

Creative use of the twist button(is that an E-Stop button??) and the arcade player buttons!

Not sure if there's a picture anywhere, but the Robocubs had a nice setup.

[hotwheel326]

Originally Posted by ctt956

Creative use of the twist button(is that an E-Stop button??) and the arcade player buttons!

We actually use that twist button as our scale function. By default, the button is pressed down and once twisted, the scale sequence starts. Pressing the button back down after getting aligned on the batter, activates the winch at the base of the robot.

[fatmandandan]

Here's a quick render of the new drive station that 4911 made. The structure is .063" 6061 powder coated aluminum sheet metal, and the decorative block in the middle is made of plastic. We also decided to add strips of red LED's to give it a bit of glow

Dimensions
8" tall
36" long
14" wide

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by messer5740

Also- we just use plexiglass with a rev extrusion rod frame, giving us a cool look and a stable place for a computer.

General warning about Plexi-glass.

Plexi-glass AKA acrylic and is rather prone to cracking and breaking. If your resources allow it I would try and use Polycarbonate it'll be easier to work with, last longer and will be pretty much unbreakable for what your doing with it.

[messer5740]

Originally Posted by pilleya

General warning about Plexi-glass.

Plexi-glass AKA acrylic and is rather prone to cracking and breaking. If your resources allow it I would try and use Polycarbonate it'll be easier to work with, last longer and will be pretty much unbreakable for what your doing with it.

Yeah our team learned the hard way we used plexiglass for our electronics board and belly pan for our first competition this year and boy did that get MESSED UP! The bottom of our robot was mostly duct tape by the time we were done with qualifications We will now use aluminum or poly carb for a belly pan. Acrylic is good for a driver station tho because it is supported by the extrusion rods. Never cracked on us yet and works well. Use it for decoration and NOT for support/ for anything weight bearing!!!

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I have to weigh in here...
Many teams went to extreme lengths this year to support cameras and make some unusual driver stations. However, the shelves on the field suffered from the extra weight these placed on the shelf and the supports. I measured several driver's stations that were over 40 lbs. If you are planning for next year, please limit your design to something less than 30 lbs, less than 20 would be better. The fields will last longer and we will minimize risk to our drivers.
Additionally, if you make a big driver's station, don't make the smallest student on your team carry it out to the field. Please! I will thank you and they will thank you.

[Sperkowsky]

Currently I am working on a driver station that has a full sized desktop in it. Should be done for next season.

It is going to have a full sized ATX motherboard, 2 ssds in Raid 0, a nvidia Quadro, and sometimes around the line of an i5 or an 8350.

[jtrv]

I can't recall what team number it was, but at 2015 Finger Lakes Regional, there was a team who brought a TV to the driver station, pretty sure over 30 inches. They just connected their laptop to it via HDMI and then had a 30+ inch screen for their robot's webcam, which was positioned in a perfect position to see pretty much everything.

Now, I'm not saying it's a viable driver station, but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing more.

[messer5740]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Currently I am working on a driver station that has a full sized desktop in it. Should be done for next season.

It is going to have a full sized ATX motherboard, 2 ssds in Raid 0, a nvidia Quadro, and sometimes around the line of an i5 or an 8350.

That is awesome. How heavy will that be, and do you require that kind of power to run the driver station program? I think a laptop will suffice.

I think the issue with the weight was to have camera poles and TVs (also done this year) that shown the field, but I feel they were quite unnecessary and just added extra weight. Our driver station only weighed about 7 lbs with the computer and joystick mounted.