Show us your practice robot. Here's ours

[NOV8R]

Here's a video of one of our drivers practicing driving our practice robot thru the tunnel. The practice robot is exactly the same size as our competition robot including bumperes. It does not have a kicker nor a CRIO control system. We use a 2.4 ghz Futaba spread spectrum radio control airplane system. It's a lot easier to set up and provides excellent control. The only thing we can't do is autonomous. http://rambotics.com/video6.html

[dtengineering]

Great idea to have a practice robot, especially with omni drive. It takes a lot of driver practice to make up for the brute pushing power of a 6 or 8wd system with the elegance of the omni.

I'm curious, though, why you chose not to put your cRio on it... or even keep your kicking mechanism behind, too, as part of the witholding allowance.

With a bit of forethought you can put all your electronics into one box that transports easily from a practice robot to the "real thing" and can do a lot of software work while you await competitions.

But hey... at least you're practicing! That's gotta help!

Jason

Edit: here's ours http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/34973

[NOV8R]

Hi Jason,We kept the CRIO back as part of the with holding allowance. The reason we don't use it on the practice robot is the Futaba 2.4 ghz system has far more capabilities (exponential, on screen programing, etc) and is far easier to use. To get it up and operating all we have to do is turn on the transmitter and recv. Look for signal lock and then turn on the robot. We don't have to mess with the classmate or worry about a modem. The drivers have been running for over 30 minutes a pop without turning the system off. The holonomic drive does take practice and that practice is begining to show. I can't imagine showing up at competition with a holonomic drive the drivers have only had a few hours to drive.

[Bruceb]

Just getting picky here but the FCC says it is illegal to use an airplane radio to control a ground vehicle and vice versa.
Bruce

[hyperdude]

I think, based on the line "a 2.4 ghz Futaba spread spectrum radio control airplane system", that it's an RC-airplane control system, not an airplane radio.

Unless I'm somehow mistaken.

[CrashTestPilot]

Yes, believe it or not, FCC covers the remote controlled airplane and helicopter models as well.
Not sure if it is still true for 2.4 ghz radios, but it was not legal to use radios on 72.5 (frequency designated for model airplanes and helis) to control any other vehicles. What that means is that one should not use such radio for R/C car, boat, hovercraft, etc. I think this was mainly for safety reason - these model airplanes are only supposed to be flown at designated fields and you wouldn't want to get shot down by interference caused by someone using radio on the same frequency to drive an R/C car in their back yard.

Bruce - what do you fly?

[Pausert]

2.4 ghz is a ground frequency. All is good. (At least according to the RioBotz Combot tutorial.)

I'd never thought of using a hobby radio system to practice...

[Wayne Doenges]

I've been flying 30+ years and yes it was illegal to run a ground vehicle with an aircraft radio. With the new 2.4 GHz radios I'm not sure it is.

I'm currently flying a Goldberg Cub. It's 15+ years old. It has an O.S. Surpass .70.
I also have a Royal Spitfire with a new O.S. Surpass .90 and a new Futaba radio for sale. $500.00 never been flown.

Sorry for the shameless for sale plug

[MFS766]

2.4GHz to 2.485GHz can be used for both aircraft and surface usage.

Here is a link explaining which frequencies can be used for RC:

http://www.modelaircraft.org/events/frequencies.aspx

Sadly, we dismantled our practice bot for parts. But we still have functional '09, '08, '07 and '06 robots for practice. And we have a "black box" software control being developed for our kicker operator to practice. If we can get it to work, it should simulate the firing sequence of our kicker so our operator can get in the habit of know where the buttons are without looking. We will have to see if will work, at least we get an ergonomic test for the OI.

[quadrinim]

BTW.... my anti virus blocked a trojan as I went onto your link, you may want to look into that.

[Andrew Y.]

2.4Ghz is exempt from the old FCC regulations.


andi would show our practice robot....if it wasnt in pieces

[NOV8R]

Since ball control is such a key part of this years game, we're spending a lot of time practicing it with our practice bot. As you can see from this video http://rambotics.com/video7.html the practice has evolved into a game of keep away between the driver and a human player.

[AcesJames]

Our "practice" robot is the frame, motors, and shifters of our 08 robot, with our kicker mounted to it currently. The drive is similar, since both our 08 and 10 robots are 6wd, although 08 is much faster, and turns quite a bit better. We don't really have an official practice bot though... Our 08 bot is just our testbed for programming during build season. The only reason it's now a practice bot is because we removed our kicker in DC last week and brought the assembly back with us to work out the bugs.

[Wayne Doenges]

Here's our practice bot. It's the one on the right (Delta Fire)
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35176