im working on redisigning our teams driver station, any thought on what worked or didnt, pictures would help?
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Things to consider:
-Size. Make sure it’s large enough for two people to comfortably stand next to each other, but small enough to be manageable and fit in the station (this past year it was a max of 44")
-Weight. When in queue, as well as the walk there and back, somebody’s gotta hold this thing. Even if you plan to just put it on the robot cart, this year at some events one person from the drive team was asked to stand on the opposite side of the field from the robot and its cart.
-Carrying. Make it easy to carry.
-Robustness. Lesson learned this year: Don’t trust four small pieces of hook-and-loop to secure your computer.
-Accessibility. You may need to plug/unplug/reconfigure quickly. Make everything accessible.
Here’s a major component of our OI. The drivetrain was controlled with joysticks, and stingers/shooter/etc controlled with this. I personally like making our own box, because it allows us to make more ergonomic design configurations than joysticks allow.
The buttons on the right set the speed of our shooter. The big red button on the left runs our automatic shooting routine, the covered switch above that deploys our stingers, and the toggle lever in the middle controls our acquirer. There’s also a thumbwheel switch on this box that allows us to select what autonomous routine we want to run.
If anything, this can get a little too bulky to carry, but I had so much fun working on its design that it didn’t bother me as much as it bothers others, and as the driver I carried it around the most 
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This is what the NERDS came up with this year. Has a handle to carry it, it’s not too big, the gamepad comes out so the driver is connected by a cable and can move around, it has the battery charger built in, and it’s only slightly difficult to connect the cables. And it rests on the robot and cart when not in use. The hook and loop connecting the computer to the plywood is large and strong.
We redesigned ours this year with some smoked Lexan and 80/20. It has two game controllers and the laptop. Its lightweight and small making it easy to manage both on and off the field. Also were were able to brand it everywhere since we got our laser engraver to do vinyl this year.
If you have any questions let me know pictures are attached.
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What did you use to connect all your switches and buttons? Was it a custom board that all went to 1 usb connected to the driver station laptop or did you use a COTS board?
links dont work 
Okay, so here’s our driver’s station. IMHO, it’s really pretty and functions well. It got made several years ago by my sister and one of our alumna/mentors. It’s basically a metal frame with 1/4 inch thick acrylic for face plates with cutouts for handles, 4 joysticks, and the classmate. One of the joysticks has been replaced with “peef” a box of buttons with LEDs that we made. The classmate velcros in. It’s not too heavy, and we’ve attached straps for carrying! Unfortunately, with the new DS measurements this year, we had to have 2 inches sawed off one end at our first regional, but you could design around that since you know… >.>
http://www.team2399.org/?attachment_id=654
we CNCed it i believe, so perhaps you wouldn’t want to use acrylic if you’re putting on together by hand. or maybe not use acrylic in general, because it can shatter, but we haven’t had any problems with that so far.
We made an extremely cheap driver station out of a piece of 1/2" plywood. We painted it and wrapped the edges in gaffers tape to prevent any splinters. Than we just dual locked (the stuff the use for Lego League tables) our joysticks, laptop and control panel to that. It’s really light weight. The only thing missing is an easy handle, we will fix that soon.
If you want to know more about how we setup the control panel, we made a white paper a little while ago.
It really depends on what your robot “requires” to operate it each year. Some teams use two joysticks while others use one for the drive base. Then it depends if you need a button box and/or joystick for your operator.
Then there are teams who just use xbox controllers and need very little of an “actual” controls board.
Whatever you end up doing, make sure you secure everything you put on there. I’ve seen teams not even bother to screw the joysticks into their board so they just slide off as they’re carrying them. It makes me cringe every time. That’s a great way to break a joystick.
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Seconded. You never know if we might get another game wherein robots frequently hit the far field wall at max speed during autonomous and knock unsecured controllers off the counter ::ouch::. (Overdrive reference)
I believe it was the former but I’m not involved in the electrical stuff but our main guy for electronics is on CD so I’ll be sure he responds.
I personally do not like the custom boards because it isn’t worth the added complication, we have had problems in the past with these breaking and then having issues we think are robot issues that aren’t. Also if you just have a gamepad or joystick your driver can start getting used to it from day 1. In the last 4 years we have made our own boards and 2 of those years we ended up essentially not using the boards. 1 year because the board broke every other match and the other year because the “ergonomically correct” board was way less natural than a joystick and a bunch of driver practice was wasted as a result.
since our drivers station only required two joysticks (one for each driver). we put one on each side of the laptop. the joysticks and the laptop were on one 42’’ by 12’’ (roughly) sheet of carbon fiber which made it light and easy to carry.
That’s the reason for velcro.
Also, in 07 (teams drove into the walls to knock down tubes) or 08, I think FIRST actually made it clear that you could step over the line in auto if your control board got knocked off by a robot ramming into the wall.
We came up with a new driver station between competitions, to remedy trying to not drop everything while it’s falling out of my arms. We designed this out of 1/16" 5052 aluminum, anodized black. It consists of 2 parts, one is the part that you see holds everything and bends down in front with “gunnrobotics” laser cut out. The other piece slides in, turning the long, essentially U shaped piece into a tube, which really helps with stiffness. I was worried about it bending or breaking until we riveted that piece in. We made it so tall (4" or so) because that joystick on the left actually sticks down about 3.75" and we needed to support it somehow.
I can post the CAD and/or a few more pictures if anyone wants them.
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We’ve gotten plenty of compliments about ours before. I’ll see if I can dig up a picture of our station and post it tomorrow (All our media files are on the school network) but I’ll try and describe ours:
Basically, we started with a snowboard. We then painted it black. Slapped on some velcro that fits a laptop size, and left enough space on both sides for at least 2 joysticks each. (IE max configuration of our board could theoretically be 2 joysticks - laptop - 2 joysticks. ) Usually how it ends up being configured would be 2 joysticks, a laptop, then our operator box.
I’d say that if there’s one thing we could add to it, it would be a carrying handle and or wheels. Make it kinda longboard style…
I’ll get pics tomorrow of 3633’s, but we had a lexan surplus and a new press so we took a 36x14x1/4 in piece of smoked lexan, bent it in front and back, placed woodblocks with marine velcro to hold the joysticks in place (and it’s rock solid), then put two thin pieces of lexan to hold the laptop down with one piece holding it by the handle. It’s clean, light, and very simple. We did have trouble reaching the ethernet and usb ports because we did not give the laptop enough room on the side, but we will get port savers made in the offseason to make them work better.
A requirement not listed above is to make it versatile and reusable in future years with many possible control schemes.
I also recommend that all teams use the pigtail! It’s easier to get a new pigtail than it is to fix/replace a broken ethernet port on your DS laptop.
It’s a FIRSTtouch, provided in the KOP and accessible through the WPIlibj API.
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