Building a second robot - electronics?

[rpaulsen]

Originally Posted by trycatch

When trying to do the two robot thing, do you HAVE to have two sets of electronics? Can you use that as your weight allowance and transfer that off your second robot back to your bagged robot at competition? We have a decent influx of funding this year, and I'm stewing on trying to do the second robot thing, but it would eat up a ton of it to get two sets of just the base electronics... the roboRIO, PDP, router, breaker, VRM, etc., etc. Does anyone else swap before bag?

We tried to do the second robot thing last year, and found that using parts from the main robot and transferring them back and forth had a very steep curve of diminishing returns, and was often more trouble than it is worth. If you can afford having at least a second full control system, buy it. You always want a back up available anyway. Control system, drive train, and chassis are probably the parts you will want to just have two of if you are going to go for the 2 robot route. You will spend too much time on assembly and reassembly of these basic components that you will barely get any time to work on improving your mechanisms.