pic: Team 237 Memorial Day Parade

[JohnBoucher]

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We just finished our run at the fairport memorial day parade. It's incredible how much recognition you can gain in your community just be participating in a couple parades . And if you can get your robot to drive during the parade the crowd all ways goes wild.

[Nuttyman54]

did you cap any spectators?

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Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

did you cap any spectators?

We would have loved to but there were a lot of pointy ends on our 2007 robot which made the task a little bit on the risky side, plus we forgot to bring the innertube .

We did in fact have both our 2006 and 2007 robot running during the parade driving side by side. The 2006 robot was firing poof balls which was very exciting to the spectators.

[Eugene Fang]

i take it that the OI was powered off of some sort of battery pack?

[JohnBoucher]

A small generator on loan from the fire department ran the OI and had a battery on charge.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

A small generator on loan from the fire department ran the OI and had a battery on charge.

Dose your team ever do anything else with your local Fire Department?
I have been thinking of asking my Chief about getting my station involved somehow.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by Pikat

i take it that the OI was powered off of some sort of battery pack?

I didn't make it this year but in the past we borrowed a small generator.

I know the fire department let us borrow one of thier Hondas one year. Worked out good since some of the trucks are in the parade so they gave it to us at the beginning and when we reached the other end we gave it back.

EDIT...John beat me to it. Appearently I can't delete this post either?

Kyle, we don't really do anything else with the fire department. We do have a few members of our team that are on the department though. We have gone to the local D.A.R.E. day too which the police and fire departments help sponsor.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by JohnBoucher

A small generator on loan from the fire department ran the OI and had a battery on charge.

Ahh, there's nothing like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

A much easier way we found for having a mobile power source for the OI is by purchasing one of these "universal" DC-DC voltage step down converters. (Similar ones are sold at Wal-Mart, Pep Boys, etc.) They are normally designed to plug into the cigarette lighter in a car, and can do any voltage between 3v and 12v DC in 1.5v steps. They also come with a half dozen different plug styles, so you can find exactly the one that fits into the OI.

For our Mountain Dewbot, we cut off the cigarette plug adapter, and spliced in an Anderson connector. (We also put a 20amp car fuse inline as well.) By powering the OI off one of the robot batteries, it will last all day long, and it allows you to put the OI, battery, and modem in a bookbag, and carry around a joystick/XBOX xontroller in your hand and drive the robot that way.

Although for parades, you can just leave the car cigarette adapter on, and power your OI that way.

[Marc P.]

Ahh, there's nothing like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

The DC-DC transformer on a robot battery or cigarette lighter will indeed keep the OI running all day long, but it won't keep the robot itself running on a 2.5-3 mile parade route. The generator on the trailer was also charging/topping off spare robot batteries, which are usually swapped out every half to three quarters of a mile.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

The DC-DC transformer on a robot battery or cigarette lighter will indeed keep the OI running all day long, but it won't keep the robot itself running on a 2.5-3 mile parade route. The generator on the trailer was also charging/topping off spare robot batteries, which are usually swapped out every half to three quarters of a mile.

True, you can't use one of the DC-DC converters to charge batteries. But for a three mile parade route you really only need six batteries, eight if you want to be on the safe side to keep the robot running. And if you charge up eight before the parade, you can go the entire parade without having to worry about recharging batteries.

We still have about eight or nine of the Exide batteries around collecting dust, in addition to four of this year's batteries, and that's what we usually do for parades/etc.