Motorized Carts

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by robotcanuck1676

2. A Segway pulling a cart.

Good call!

I found this picture while browsing segwaychat.com a while back. It looks like it could work as a robot cart, without any major additional modifications (although standoff pipes or something similar in nature to elevate the robot wheels, so as to prevent the bot from sliding off the cart, would probably need to be added).



Okay, I know it says in the Segway User Manual to never pull 'trailers' behind the Segway, but there's certainly been a large amount of people who have safely done just that. The only problem I can foresee being a major problem is that I'd be worried about going down a ramp - like in Atlanta - and having the robot cart coast into the back of the Segway.... But if you're on flat ground and you keep it to slow, controllable speeds (as in the Black Key range), you should be fine.

I've pulled 228's robot cart (robot and six batteries onboard) through the halls of our high school school while on my Segway, by using my left hand to turn the Segway and my right hand to pull the cart. So I can vouch for the fact that Segways are powerful enough to pull a loaded cart.

[Ian Curtis]

Yep Art, that Home Depot available cart makes a most excellent robot cart. How do I know? We used one last year.

What we did was put some 2x6's around the edge, which the frame of our robot rested upon, allowing our wheels to spin freely, should they decide to begin rotating during testing in the pit. We'll most likely use it again this year. Also, this cart dissasembles very easily to stuff into a crate, and takes spray paint very well. Now to only find a segway...

[Brad Voracek]

Man, how do you guys have the money to ship these things? =P

We just go with a simple dolley... It works really well imo, plus it's light =/

[Graham Donaldson]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Actually, Cold Cathode Flourescent Lights and Neons are different. For all you know, they could have actually used Neon lights (such as Streetglow's with a 12v adapter), but those would be more expensive.

They were cold cathodes... I just didn't remember and was trying to get the point across... It looked pretty cool.

Originally Posted by Brad Voracek

Man, how do you guys have the money to ship these things? =P

We just go with a simple dolley... It works really well imo, plus it's light =/

We don't ship them- we just bring them with us (it probably wouldn't fit in the crate anyways).

[DUCKIE]

I've seen bicycle pulled carts, Motorized carts, wooden dollies with barely 2 inches of ground clearance, and teams using handcarts to move their robots. While all are really cool and I’d probably enjoy the electric golf cart puling trailer more than anyone else, PLEASE THINK AHEAD when planning your cart. And remember these five things....

1- "I'm a doctor, not an engineer" Imagine the doctors in a hospital pushing a patient in a gurney... when they get to a door the patient has to get up and walk through, then they can get back on the gurney... doesn't make much sense huh? Neither does a cart that cannot fit through a standard doorway WITH the Robot ON It! (My first year our original cart could fit though the doorways, but we had to turn the robot 90 degrees and carry it though... at EVERY Doorway... VERY ANNOYING when late for a match!)

2- "Able to leap buildings in a single bound!" Sorry Superman moment there) Pits, Fields, and everywhere in between have cords, ramps, and carpets or mats on the floor. Try to design your cart so it can easily roll over them. (Preferably without you needing to reach under the 100-120 lb. robot with your hand to pull the barely 1' square or less dolly it's precariously balanced on over the cord runners)

3- "All I had to do was turn left" Turning is good! and you may need to do it to get around the field and through the crowded pits. (I saw a really neat motorize robot cart / toolbox one year, but they could barely turn, and they took up twice the space of other teams. It often took them forever to maneuver through the queues & seemed like more of a hindrance than a help.)

4- "I just can't do it captain, I don't have the power" If you do decide to pimp our your cart and motorize it... make sure you can still use it when it is un-powered.

5- "I'm going to pimp your ride" while I’m sure all robots would love someone from MTV's Pimp Your Ride to say that to them, I don't think that’s going to happen, so you need to do it yourself. A can of spray paint, some lights, maybe even some diamond plate. Decorating your cart to match your team image is fun, fills up time between ship and competitions (And is useful for field personal to find out which drive team to yell at when carts are left in bad places. )