Here’s the internal view of the drive train packaging. The roller chain has not been installed, but electrical and mechanical is in its final locations. The RC, additional spikes, backup battery, radio modem, sound system, etc. were installed in the “dew can” superstructure with plenty of room for more features.
Design started in the fall, but we didn’t have much time to fabricate the whole machine. Other than the 80/20 frame and the track bogeys, everything was fabricated in two weeks after our FRC season ended. So we only had enough time to get a drivetrain, sound system and lighting packaged into a polished looking package. The robot’s been invited back next year, so we plan on adding more features…
Anyone with some nice pictures of a semi-automatic t-shirt launcher, we’d be grateful for some inspiration!
You had to have paralleled those batteries… are you having any issues with the batteries voltage eqalizing (running high current between eachother) when you plug them in?
Usually the only way to stably put multiple batteries in a system is in series… unless maybe your charging them on the same charger/leave them parralelled at all times?
How about it actually acting like a cooler? Have a little place for a moeny intake and a locking lid untill money is deposited and out comes a frosty beverage?
This isn’t our FRC competition robot, just an interesting off-season project (built to almost FRC-legal standards) that my father and myself built for the team as a public relations robot.
If you look in the main robot picture, there is a front “access hatch” on the robot that uses two polycarb hinges to swing open, allowing for easy access to the batteries and main breaker. This also keeps all the “technical” stuff on the robot hidden from view, which was one of our original design criteria for this robot, as it keeps everyone wondering “how does it do that?!”.
That is just amazing!! Shows pure dedication and love of FIRST to build that… and Mountain Dew none the less haha. I do wish that was your FRC robot though… would love to see that in competition
Checked the batteries carefully for bad cells, and ran them charging and running as a matched set at all times. This isn’t the final wiring, though. I want to add a second main power breaker and run as an “A” battery source and a “B” battery source. The battery access hatch is pretty tight so I’d rather swap sources by opening one breaker and closing the other. Then we can exchange batteries away from the public’s view.
