off season mods

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by Adama

something a little beefier but want to be sure of its legality in any of the off season events.

Ask the team that is holding the off season event. Most don't care if you come in a little overweight or with not-so-legal mods as long as it is within reason and in the spirit of fun competiton.

[Otaku]

I'm seriously considering a project much like 1678's Robochair, except...

Wireless.

That's right, with a wireless control board. People would be amazed at the chair driving around with nobody in it.

Too bad the IFI control system thing runs about 1.2k$.

If I got a FIRST KOP though, or old robot parts, that would own, though.

In fact, I might be able to talk to my team and get old robot parts. I could be the awesome dude driving around a college campus in a big, comfy chair. That would be awesome.

[MrForbes]

VEXstuff is much less expensive, and you can run Victors from the PWM outputs of the VEX controller.

that's what 1726's "promobot" uses. (I think....so be careful)

Safety FIRST, though

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by squirrel

VEXstuff is much less expensive, and you can run Victors from the PWM outputs of the VEX controller.

that's what 1726's "promobot" uses. (I think....so be careful)

Safety FIRST, though

I might have to look into that.

And yeah, I'd be safe about it. I'd try to keep as much of the original chair frame intact as possible, all while isolating the robot parts for easy removal and repair if needed, plus protection against possible electrical fires (knowing my electrical skills...)

[1359th Scalawag]

Originally Posted by Otaku

I'm seriously considering a project much like 1678's Robochair, except...

Wireless.

That's right, with a wireless control board. People would be amazed at the chair driving around with nobody in it.

Too bad the IFI control system thing runs about 1.2k$.

If I got a FIRST KOP though, or old robot parts, that would own, though.

In fact, I might be able to talk to my team and get old robot parts. I could be the awesome dude driving around a college campus in a big, comfy chair. That would be awesome.

I want a robot chair like the one a team at the Davis regional had as their mascot. It was soo cool! That would be a great off-season project. Ride down town in the parade in a robo-chair. *drools*

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by 1359th Scalawag

I want a robot chair like the one a team at the Davis regional had as their mascot. It was soo cool! That would be a great off-season project. Ride down town in the parade in a robo-chair. *drools*

That "one team" was 1678, yeah.

I'm actually considering talking to my team's sponsors. And as a bonus, I could modify the power system to work in parallel (basically, doubling or tripling the battery life depending on the amount of batteries I use).

That's why the Radio-controlled would be so awesome, is because I could walk behind it as I drove it, or sit in it. But that would take 7.2v batteries for the OI.

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by Otaku

That "one team" was 1678, yeah.

I'm actually considering talking to my team's sponsors. And as a bonus, I could modify the power system to work in parallel (basically, doubling or tripling the battery life depending on the amount of batteries I use).

That's why the Radio-controlled would be so awesome, is because I could walk behind it as I drove it, or sit in it. But that would take 7.2v batteries for the OI.

Too funny, that's what we've started with our Team as well after seeing Davis HS (1678) do that. The students want to do armchair races and such. We may use a mecanum setup as shown in the attached picture. We've had some students working on a basic mecanum platform for the past month. It runs off a VEX controller and some old 883's from year's past. They wanted to use our old pBasic controllers, but I pushed them to use the VEX and continue to develop programming skills in C. They also use a VEX RC unit to drive it.

Here's a video of it running..

Now to find a LazyBoy to stick on top of it!!

[Otaku]

That's cool.

If (and/or when) I get the nessacary parts, I'll probably just make a simple tank-drive bot with Kitbot chassis parts just for driving around. I'm thinking, however, of making a pneumatic robotic artillery gun, that can drive and fire simultaneously, as well as change barrel angle and rotation (to about 30 degrees either way).

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by Otaku

That's cool.

If (and/or when) I get the nessacary parts, I'll probably just make a simple tank-drive bot with Kitbot chassis parts just for driving around. I'm thinking, however, of making a pneumatic robotic artillery gun, that can drive and fire simultaneously, as well as change barrel angle and rotation (to about 30 degrees either way).

I think we're thinking along the same lines.. see this thread. We should be able to interchange our cannon system with "hopefully" an arm chair

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Batteries don't like being placed in parallel without some steering diodes to prevent self discharge.

Originally Posted by Otaku

I'm seriously considering a project much like 1678's Robochair, except...

Wireless.

That's right, with a wireless control board. People would be amazed at the chair driving around with nobody in it.

Too bad the IFI control system thing runs about 1.2k$.

If I got a FIRST KOP though, or old robot parts, that would own, though.

In fact, I might be able to talk to my team and get old robot parts. I could be the awesome dude driving around a college campus in a big, comfy chair. That would be awesome.

If you can't get controllers, give me a PM or something and I may be able to swing you one of our old basic controllers and OI's. I'll have to run it by the team, but we have so many that I'm sure they'd be fine with it.