Between-Match Battery Swaps

[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by dubious elise

The batteries take up to 6 hours to charge fully. Our team often brings a minimum of 10 batteries to each competition. At the Boilermaker Regional last year, I believe that we had 12 batteries in the morning and, by the final finals match, we were one of the few teams that still had batteries so we had to supply one battery, not only to ourselves, but also one to one of our alliance partners and one to an apposing alliance member. (we had an uncanny 4 matches in the finals)

12 batteries is excessive if you ask me. With the 6A chargers FIRST provides these days, I don't really see a need for having more than 5 or 6 batteries, even if you have a crazy power-hungry robot. If you kill a battery every match, then you should rethink the mechanical design of your robot. If you plan it right, and you don't have a lot of back-to-back matches, and your robot doesn't draw a ton of power, you can certainly get through a regional with only 3 or 4.