Battery Smoke

[Mike Hendricks]

Originally Posted by Adam Shapiro

More recently I have seen teams that build extensions to the tether/programming ports for easy access, while setting the RC a bit further back for protection. I think this is an excellent idea, however make sure you keep the indicator LEDs visible at all times, and make sure it isn't too hard to get to the RC to make changes or to secure wires (which should be done frequently since they have a habit of coming loose). It's very easy to overlook your controller as a point of failure, but it hurts a lot if that's what ends up breaking on the field.

A slightly late reply, but I'm going to do it anyways.

We've put extensions on our tether and program ports in previous years, but the IFI people don't seem to get a kick out of it. In the 2 years we went to the Championship (2004 and 2005), the IFI people strongly advised against doing this, as it can cause interference with the radio.

Just to add to what Adam said, at our second regional this year (San Diego), one of the teams in our alliance had a poorly covered controller. A bad tangle with another robot, caused the opposing robot's arm (or appendage, or something) to grab all 8 (or so) PWM cables and bend every single pin that they were using on the PWM side of the controller. They carefully bent the pins back, and by some miracle, didn't break any. But, everyone should know that the controller is the single most expensive part possible on the robot, so treat it accordingly.