Coasting

[LightWaves1636]

Originally Posted by Cyberguy34000

Our robot last year had a nifty little feature that the programers rigged up where the driver could switch between coasting and breaking just by fliping a switch on a joystick. The idea was that we could buy a little more time by coasting over the back line after the power went out and score a few more points. We ended up not really useing it a lot though, and kept it mainly on the brake setting.

But it was a nifty little feature nonetheless,

now that's nifty, we're going to hack a joystick that we're not using and make a buttin that will switch us from autonomous code to RC and vice versa. don't know if we;lll be able to do it or not but hopefully our mentor helps. It's possible, we just need the wiring to be correct.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

In most cases, using the "brake" feature on drive controllers is a bad thing. The drivers feel they have no control over the robot and just when you least expect it, bam, the brake causes your robot to tip over.
Ligthwave, if you look on the IFI website, there is a pinout for the competition port and a diagram to make a switch that will disable the robot, enable for competition or enable auto mode. It is a very simple device to make, and is absolutely necessary in practice.