Hi Everyone,
I have seen many robots that have a lift, fourbar/chainbar, and intake. What surprises me is the ability to control three mechanisms while driving the robot (mainly stacking the preloads). I understand that it takes driving skills to stack preloads quickly with all of these mechanisms, but does anyone have any suggestions on what they think the controls for a robot like this should be? (The lift, the fourbar/chainbar, and the intake)
Thanks!
well, I suggest using joystick for the drive train, and I like using the buttons on the back for the lifts, and the buttons on the front for the intake, but that’s just me. whatever works for you.
Using 8059J as an example robot, because it is what I think represents your average ITZ robot, an idea that I had (but have never used) is using one joystick for movement, another for the lift, and channels 5/6 (the “trigger” and “bumper” buttons) for the mobile goal intake and claw, and have a front button set to a macro to automatically stack. Of course, controlling the intake (chainbar in 8059) would also have manual control, for external stacking
alternatively, you could use two drivers, and split the load.
We have 2 drivers. One person operates the chassis, and the other person (using the partner joystick, connected via curly-telephone cord) operates our lift & claw.
I bow down to people who can control all of these things at once.
haha. I see you were just on my instagram asking the same thing lol 1437z
It just takes a bit of good programming. But, you can bow if you want. 
Ignore the partner controller, it is literally just for pressing a button every time we successfully stack a cone. In this video, the robot is basically controlled by one controller. This is because the whole stacking motion is automated (with admittedly bad PID).
In Starstruck, I was able to control the drive, the lift, and the claw myself. It’s not that hard if the claw and lift are always doing reasonable things, based on programming and present situation, when not actively controlled.
This year, we currently have an external stacker with a passive intake. I am confident that I can control a drive and a lift, with the other set of bumpers for the mobile goal lift when I am using that.
We have dr4b on Btn5, claw on Btn6, drive on joysticks, Chainbar on Btn8UD, Mobile Goal lift on Btn7RD, and a few toggle buttons on the 8s
I recommend everyone to have the drive on joysticks. But as team 1103 did several years ago, one button to do multiple things (in his case let go of the donuts, drive backward, turn around, and lower the lift) is definitely beneficial with only one driver.