Covering Electronics

[velocipenguin]

If your electronics are anywhere where they can be reached by other robots, balls, and the like, it is imperative that you protect them. Wires can be torn loose, Victors and Spikes can be damaged, and pins on the RC can be bent or broken. It's extremely simple to protect your electronics, and definitely worth your while. Ours are mounted to an outward-facing vertical panel near the back of the robot, so we placed a sheet of 1/8" Lexan in front of it. It took very little time and material to install, and we all feel a lot better knowing that we won't have hundreds of dollars' worth of electronic devices smashed to bits by an errant playground ball.

If you're still unwilling to protect your electronics, at least make sure that your connections are well-insulated to protect them from being shorted by robot appendages. In 2002, our robot (the low-slung red plywood thing with a giant robot-grabbing forklift on the front) was in a match in Orlando against some beautifully-engineered, frighteningly awesome metallic beast. As soon as the match started, our robot headed straight for the aforementioned wonder of engineering, drove its lift underneath, and picked it up. As soon as we picked up their robot, its main breaker tripped, leaving it incapacitated for the remainder of the match. Needless to say, that team was very annoyed, but the judges agreed that this incident was their fault for failing to properly insulate and protect their electrical connections, which allowed our aluminum forklift to short their positive supply wiring to ground. The moral of this story: protect your electronics and wiring!