I would love to see pictures and what people think the best robot cart is. We have seen the super pit. Is there a super Robot cart?
What’s your must haves for a robot cart?
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Hello, I’ll send you my thread from pretty recently.
There’s a good amount of replies if you want to read through it.
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Musts:
Gets over bumps
Robot doesn’t fall off
Easy to maneuver
Doesn’t get in the way
Doesn’t fall apart
Safe lifting height
Nice:
Display sponsors/team info
Place to hold spare battery and tools
Place to hold computer and joystick driver station during transport
Looks good
Don’t:
Automate/power driven
Ride chariot-style
Take up the whole aisle
Waste your build season (or your resources) on it
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Our team is in the middle of making a new robot cart, but our old one was just a basic scissor lift type thing. We had a novelty licence plate on it which I liked. It also made for a cool place to sit during meetings.
I have no idea what the “best” robot cart is, but I will share this detail about ours. We riveted these folding shelf brackets to our cart’s handles to create a foldaway place for the driver station, and it worked out great. Highly recommended!
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B08NTC4XWW?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
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We built a new cart during the last off-season (i.e., when the team had time that didn’t need to be spent on the current robot.) It answered a lot of the criteria that @mrnoble set out above. It’s easily maneuvered with large casters that go over bumps and obstacles well, the top rails give a good seat for the robot while keeping it’s wheels off the deck, it’s very solidly built, the deck is at a good working and lifting height, it has four side drawers for tools and parts, the bottom level is bumper storage (for the set we’re not using), there’s a space forward under the deck to store the drivers’ station, the handle retracts to get out of the way when working, and there’s a space if front of it to store three extra batteries. It’s also looks pretty good, is obviously team built, and has our logo and number prominently displayed on the front. The frame is welded 1x1 aluminum square tube (except for the handle mounts, which are 1.5x1.5 tube) and the panels, drawers, etc. are plywood. Here’s what it looks like in action:
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This cart works well for us. We’ve changed a few things since we originally built it in 2020:
- We permanently attached the top segment, which originally we could remove to use it as a maintenance stand.
- Changed the wheels from 6" omnis to casters
- Replaced the sponsor panels each year to keep up with our themes
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+1 for these brackets.
We found the same things at Home Depot and painted them black. Easy way to have a quick shelf for the driver station or quickly collapse them down while the robot is being worked on. They look cheap, but it’s the best use of space.
High on our list is flexible storage. Each robot has some unique needs so we keep the bottom pretty open so we can throw bins of tools, water bottles, cords etc.
We have a rack in the back to hold two batteries and spots for 3 hardware trays from our pit. One we keep on here permanently with backup hardware (zip ties, bumper hardware, 1/4-20 & 10 nuts). It also has Band-Aids, candy, and cough drops.
Highest on the list is room for six camping stools. Everyone needs a break in que.
Keep it light. Heavy carts can be more aesthetic, but tiring for a student to push around all weekend.
It’s not the fanciest cart, but it does the job.
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im pretty fond of ours. I dont have any pictures at the moment,
but a brief description,
its a industrial cart with a scissor lift so we can lift the robot up higher and have easier access to the underside. on top of the lift is a tool box, so if we cant finish repairs in the pits we can keep working in queue, or go through a checklist in queue for quick turnaround matches. on top of the tool box we have Bosch Rexroth slotted profile, so if need be we can adjust the size of the base the robot sits on. and there is a spot for spare batteries. we have had it since before I was a student on the team in 09, and its still going strong now. it has had a few minor repairs here and there. the only thing I wish it had more was a spot to hold the driver station.
Our team has a simple cart, I don’t have a great picture but it’s made out of 80/20, wood and wheels. Big carts are cool but small ones are convenient and you can hold it with one hand.
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That’s a sexy cart
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Hot take: cheap, simple dollies are more usable than 90% of more elaborate robot carts.
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I’ve read some things on the internet - but that one ranks right up there.
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Not the first time I’ve seen those in robot cart threads. Would make for an excellent KoP item! 
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Any chance you would be willing to share the design of this cart?
We don’t have CAD to share sorry - it was kind of just built to sketch. The base is a 2’ x 4’ rectangle made of 2x1 aluminum tubing, joined with riveted gussets. The top of the tubing has a plywood deck. Additional plates are used to hold the casters and the handle (which is bent muffler tube). There’s an 80-20 extrusion “pedestal” on top of the plywood, which is there to elevate the robot a bit and give a place to store the bumpers, but we often tweak the pedestal to suit the robot.
Here’s a recent photo. Sorry it’s not a close-up.
My tip is to put some nonzero design effort into the cart-robot interface.
In 2022 I wrote to a friend:
This is an interesting one, we were just having a conversation recently about potentially replacing our robot cart, and I pushed back on it. I’m not super attached to the thing (some photos) but i recognize that it’s a pretty decent sized cost if we decided to replace it. A comparable aluminum platform truck would be around $500.
The rails on our cart work for West Coast Drive chassis really well, but we found that it was hard to set this year’s swerve drive chassis down on it accurately without fouling a module. We’re going to work on this and come up with a better solution.
FRCFIRST Robotics Competition 836 has neat wooden blocks that stick up from the top surface of their cart. The blocks are reconfigurable to fully constrain their chassis.
Inspired by 836, this season I took on the side-task of rethinking the robot-cart interface to fully constrain our 2023 robot.
I came up with these plywood forks:
These are very cheap (in terms of time and money) to iterate on. They ride on t-slot rails, which can be repositioned in future seasons to support different robot geometry.
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Suprisingly enough, I don’t have any overly good shots of our robot cart on it’s own, but here’s a CAD screenshot and a half decent photo from our first event this past season.
This cart was designed and built during the 2022 pre-season. The design took inspiration from this spectrum robot cart.
Main features of this cart (in my eyes):
- Adjustable supports to keep robot wheels raised off cart (see aluminum tubing and the array of holes for adjusting from season-season)
- Light weight/easy to maneuver
- Robust 5" casters for navigating cable protectors and parking lots
- Small too chest/drawers for essential tools needed field side
- Large open space for versatile storage options
- Removable handle (helps when transporting the cart, ie shorter overall height)
- Looks good, encompasses team image and is robust enough to be used for years to come
Initially the top of the cart was about 32" off the ground for the 2022 season. For the 2023 season, we shortened the 4 legs of the cart by about 6" for a table height of about 26". In 2022 our students (and shorter mentors such as myself 
) struggled to safely lift the robot on and off of the cart. The lower height is much more ergonomic, and was still easy to work on the robot (a concern when talking about lowering the cart).
The only thing that I would add/change to this cart would be a dedicated place to store a driver station. I like the looks of the collapsible shelf brackets posted by others above, that may be a retrofit we look into for 2024…
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If I was designing an ideal robot cart, it would have these features:
- Have big wheels to get over cable protectors/bumps without being overly bulky and still maneuverable
- Be able to fit through a standard size door
- Have storage for two extra batteries, tethers, and frequently used hand tools
- Have storage for several stools or a folding bench for impromptu drive team seating
- Include a hydraulic table or other lifting mechanism for working on the robot at different heights
- Don’t need to be very careful to set the robot down on the cart in the exact correct position
To date I’ve only had carts that achieved 4 out of these 6 at a time.
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No discussion complete without 5006’s as seen here:
Chairmans 2022: One initiative at a time - YouTube