Simple things you can do to make your bot/team perform better

[mtrawls]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

Confirm that all your electrical connections are tight.

1. Make sure the nuts holding the positive and negative 6 gauge is secured tightly to their distrobution blocks or circut breakers. Also check the screws on the new distribution blocks to make sure those wires are secured as well.

I second that. Geez! We discovered that after shipping to the Annapolis regional, several screws/connectors became lose somehow and started giving us intermettint results (and as it was the result of two different things happening simultaneously, it was really fun to track down!) So, even if it worked at another regional, do extensive systems checks, and check everything visually too. Especially screws on speed controllers stuck in the depths of the robot (the problems *always* happen on the one speed controller that had to be put out of the way due to space ... some sort of physics rule I think).

Also, just a general tip if you're using pots ... check your values before a match. A pot slipped on us a few times, and seemed to work in a systems check, but going up in a match it didn't perform correctly because of a bad pot value ... and afterwards, I always check all three pots on our robot before a match (I have a nifty debug pot on the oi to change between modes so I don't have to upload new code). It's horrible losing a match because of something so simple, and something that shouldn't happen in the first place, so just keep a heads up for it.

Well, 12 hours and counting till we leave for Columbia! W00t!