On the Importance of the Backup Teams

[Peter Johnson]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

On Newton, in the second match of the finals against us, 294 stopped functioning and it was game over for the #1 alliance in that match.

We lost our CAN bus connection in that match; first time that had happened since the last qual match of the LA regional (when our pneumatics came loose when going over a bump and slammed down on a CANbus connector tab, neatly disconnecting it). We had electrical-taped down all of our CAN bus connectors but apparently one had worked its way loose over 15+ matches in Atlanta. We were very sure to push down on each connection before every match after that mishap!

Next year we're thinking about hot gluing the connectors in (maybe in combination with a more secure connector to still allow unplug). We're also considering going back to PWMs for the drivetrain so at least we can drive if CANbus fails.

Side note: 294 used 7 black Jaguars on our robot, all hooked up via CAN, for the entire season (no Victors). Other than the 2 CAN bus disconnections (neither directly Jaguar-related), we never had a Jaguar issue, and never needed to replace one throughout the season (and obviously had no issues pushing them hard on Einstein!).