Help needed with team cart ideas!!

[Brown]

Hey everyone I am speaking on the behalf of team 1742. This year our team is looking to improve upon our cart. We want to engineer something that will transport/possibly lift the robot at competition. If you fellow First Robotics teams could put a picture of your carts on the site our team would greatly appreciate it. We are not looking to make an exact copy of your cart per say we just want to derive some ideas to create a cart that best suits our needs.

[ebarker]

If you will go to the FIRST website and dig around and find the archived conference presentations you should find one that was done by a team on the design of a pit cart.

[tseres]

just make sure it's absolutely covered in lights

[AcesPease]

Here is a picture of our robot up on our cart at an off season event:

http://aceshigh176.org/drupal/index....html?q=gallery

The arms reverse so the robot is near the ground and very easy to maneuver in tight places, like ordinary doorways. When transporting the cart folds to about 6"

[Pavan Dave]

Bright lights, a horn, possibly a CAR stereo, and this is very very optional, but a way to safely drive the non-stearing wheels via motors.

[Billfred]

I saw one thing on 79's cart at Florida this year that I thought was genius. They had a frosted white panel on the base, which was lit from below. Result? Easy visibility of any part of the robot, no matter how poorly-lit the pit tents at Florida were.

[Kristian Calhoun]

Originally Posted by Pavan

Bright lights, a horn, possibly a CAR stereo, and this is very very optional, but a way to safely drive the non-steering wheels via motors.

Just a reminder to keep in mind the following when building your cart:

Originally Posted by FRC 2007 Manual

3.3.6 NEW: Robot Carts
To protect team members and mentors from muscle strains and other injuries as they transport
the heavy robot from the Pit to the competition area, we recommend that team members and
mentors use some type of cart, keeping the following in mind.

• Carts must remain in the team pit area when not in use for robot transportation
• All carts should fit through a standard 30-inch door
• Wheels on the cart must not damage site flooring
• Do not add music to the cart.

Prior to competing, your competition team should practice lifting your robot onto and off your cart.
Refer to the “FIRST Robotics Competition Team Safety Manual” for robot lifting techniques. By
practicing these safe techniques, your team members will also develop a quick, fluid routine.

Also, section 3.12 of last years rulebook states

Originally Posted by Section 3.12

Do not use noisy devices, such as floor stompers, whistles, or air horns.

Yes, the rules differ from year to year, but I doubt that these rule will change drastically anytime soon.

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by Kristian Calhoun

Just a reminder to keep in mind the following when building your cart:



Also, section 3.12 of last years rulebook states
Yes, the rules differ from year to year, but I doubt that these rule will change drastically anytime soon.

Okay BUT honestly, when at demos or at competitions people don't pay attention and from time to time you NEED to use your horn. Also about the music, our team listens to music at the facility using the cart, and when we go to demo's we use it for music. If you want a good cart you will incorporate these, because I'm assuming you are building a ROBOT cart and not a FRC cart.

If you have it and don't use it its all good, its when you use it is where FIRST has problems *sigh*..-.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Pavan

Okay BUT honestly, when at demos or at competitions people don't pay attention and from time to time you NEED to use your horn. Also about the music, our team listens to music at the facility using the cart, and when we go to demo's we use it for music. If you want a good cart you will incorporate these, because I'm assuming you are building a ROBOT cart and not a FRC cart.

If you have it and don't use it its all good, its when you use it is where FIRST has problems *sigh*..-.

Pavan,

You and Kristian are both right.

Kristian- Good job Reading The FIRST Manual! The rules are everyone's friend. If one was making a cart for use only in FRC, then these rules should be followed, 100%. However, as Pavan mentioned, some teams use their cart for demos. Music at those demos is fine-- however, there are other ways to do this (almost EVERYTHING is portable now) besides putting it on your cart. If a team was to bring their tricked-out cart to a FIRST event, though, it would be the team's responsiblity to stick to the honor code of FIRST. Remember, the music/horn rule wasn't made to suck all the fun out of making your robot cart, but so that the pit and field announcements are not interrupted.

In essence, you can make your cart as cool as you want, but you should probably stick to the rules when there are rules given to you. It's the gracious thing to do.

[techtiger1]

My advice make the cart so it's functional then look good. Team 86 has a pretty cool cart it has a tool box intergrated on it so you don't have to go back and forth to the pits during the finals. We've worked with them a few times at Fl regional and it's always come in handy. 1251 has 2 carts actually one is for demos and one is for robot competitons. The one for demos is crazy and sometimes makes it to competition. I'll post a link to a picture if I have one. The cart has a custom paint job, sound system, and built in battery chargers. We brought it to championship in 06. Some other good ideas I have seen on carts is team 233's cart has a scissor lift that allows them to work on the robot with out having to take it on and off the cart.

Just some thoughts,
Drew

[Hunter Levesque]

We have shelves on our cart that we use to hold water bottles during the elimination rounds because the drivers don't have a chance to leave the field.

[Daniel Bathgate]

Originally Posted by Brown

If you fellow First Robotics teams could put a picture of your carts on the site...

Picture of our cart?



As a rookie team short on members, we didn't have any time to deal with making a cart, so we simply used a hand truck from Orchard Supply laid sideways. It wasn't pretty, but it worked great. Remember that the primary goal of your cart is to move your robot, so be sure to make it sturdy. A beautiful, complicated, but broken cart during competition would be not be any fun. One point learned from our cheap cart is to make sure the design of the cart won't damage your robot when it is quickly placed for movement - we had to be careful to place our robot keeping weight off of our underhanging pneumatic cylinders.

That said, now that our team is much larger, a fancier cart is sure to come. Best of luck with yours!

[JBotAlan]

I don't have any pictures of our team's cart, but I can do my best to describe it.

We have a 2ish ft tall cart with giant wheels on the bottom. The cart has a drawer in which we put everything we need on the field during elims. There are 4 arms that stick up about a foot with u-channel (c-channel, whatever you want to call it) that the base of the robot mates with. That way, the wheels are not damaged by all the dirt/metal shavings/whatever might be on the cart. Nothing but the 4 points on the chassis touch the cart. It posed an issue when we went up against 1114 (I think) and bent the #$%^ out of the front, making putting it on the cart securely interesting...

The cart is covered in diamond plating, making it pretty (my team is probably laughing at this post). It has a handle that can be removed by pulling a pin out.

That's about it. I wish there was a way to take the holding arms off so I have a place to sit during elims...oh well.

JBot

[EricH]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

I don't have any pictures of our team's cart, but I can do my best to describe it.

We have a 2ish ft tall cart with giant wheels on the bottom. The cart has a drawer in which we put everything we need on the field during elims. There are 4 arms that stick up about a foot with u-channel (c-channel, whatever you want to call it) that the base of the robot mates with. That way, the wheels are not damaged by all the dirt/metal shavings/whatever might be on the cart. Nothing but the 4 points on the chassis touch the cart. It posed an issue when we went up against 1114 (I think) and bent the #$%^ out of the front, making putting it on the cart securely interesting...

What? No mention of the tow vehicle? Or did that give up the ghost?

[Herodotus]

Here is something I just typed up today, as I wanted to have all the ideas and requirements for the cart our team wants to build written out before I started making some sketches and designs. Some ideas I took from reading this thread, while others are ideas we had already been talking about for awhile on our team.

Requirements

Must be able to fit through the average doorway.
Must be able to get over electrical conduits and other bumps in the floor.
Must be sturdy enough to hold at least 180 pounds in weight, for safety.
Must be able to either hold any size robot (platform) or be able to easily convert to hold different sized robots (modular design)
Must be easy to steer, such as using casters.
Has to be transportable in small vehicles. So as many quick releases and modular pieces as possible.

Ideas

Some sort of lift to get the robot up to our height. Possible designs include a scissor lift or straightforward pneumatic/hydraulic lift.
Tool space. At least enough for one of our small toolboxes. Even better would be a design where we can put the top half of our red tool box onto the cart.
Modularity. The ability to alter the cart easily to suit our needs as time goes by.
Diffused under-light for lighting up the interior of the robot without being blindingly bright.
Built in power strip with extendable extension cable.
Sound system for awesomeness, though we couldn’t use it at the competitions.
A place purpose designed to hold the control board.
Drink holders. Mountain Dew, nuff said.
Wicked awesome paint job and sleek design, only if it doesn’t compromise other design features.
Powered cart, or even remote drive. Though this should be last in our considerations as it makes almost everything else harder.