After worlds, my team is planning to build a two legged robot that mimics humans. However to do this we will need about 25 motors and 15 sensors. The most obvious solution would be to use either a smart port splitter or multiple brains. We have decided to see if we can do the second option because we have an extra brain lying around. How would we go about doing this?
BTW our team programmer only knows python.
You would need to setup serial (RS-485) or wireless connection between two V5 brains:
VEXlink documentaton
Linking V5 Brains - #2 by jpearman
Smart Ports Power Wire
How do I get two or more Vex V5 Brains to handshake?
Rapsberry Pi to VEX Bidirectional Communication
Both wired and wireless methods need advanced programming skills and for RS-485 it will require some knowledge of soldering.
It might be easier to try your project with only 20 motors at the beginning before attempting multi-brain setup.
Its worth mentioning that the brain can only power 8 v5 motors at full power simultaneously. Any more and the brain will automatically reduce the power usage of all motors. Best of luck with your project!
It will, but you can also help the algorithm decide how to reduce power by manually setting maximum power for some of the motors so more is available for others.
I think we only implemented the message_link class (from the documentation @weilin linked) in Python, but there will be a new release of the V5 Python VM in the next week or so that will add the ability to use generic communication on a V5 smartport that would allow you to implement your own protocol over a wired connection.