New to the VEX community and let me tell you that I’m pumped!!! I’m actually addicted to this stuff now! Anyways, I’m in the process of drawing up my first robot, has anyone ever thought of building a self charging home base so that when the robot’s batteries are low, the robot can charge himself kinda like the IRobot (Rumba?)? If so, any hints or tips? Vex doesn’t have the technology for that kinda stuff yet so maybe you guys have heard of somewhere else I could research or something else I could do? I’m trying to make my robot 100% (or almost at least) autonomous, I know, it might be tough but I’m still optimistic!
Welcome to the VEX community, you are probably addicted like most people are at VEXforum.Well there Thomas, a self charging home base would be kool, but then again expensive. And a 100% autonomous robot would take probably months to build and program and over that fact, even with that kind of time, it wouldn’t probably be up to your expectations. I’m not trying to crush all your hopes and dreams and flush them down the toilet, but you really have to be realistic, especially since you’re a noob at this right now.
Are you knew to Vex or robotics? From my building experiences a fully autonomous robot for a first timer will be really hard to build with all the sensor programming and its impossible to make the robot self charging using the battery it comes with so it would require some serious retrofitting to make it work.
Welcome to the forum. I understand about the addiction. In a way, I am almost glad Radio Shack stopped selling this stuff locally. I was constantly going back to the store for more stuff. I kept spending money I couldn’t afford on Vex.
Sounds like a fun project. You would need a way to seek the base. Something as simple as a flashing light could be detected by the light sensor.
You would need to connect the battery terminal (through an appropriate voltage divider) to an analog input to sense that you are connected to the base.
You can use the Vex batteries, but you will have to use the Vex controller to manage the charging, unless you want to risk overcharging and ruining your batteries. You would need a couple of temperature sensors to monitor the battery temperature rise above ambient temperature to detect full charge.
I think the project sounds very doable. Some solder, some programming, some ingenuity, and it could work.
Hmmm, I wonder how long Vex hardware would last under continuous operation.
ITK like an endurance? I think an endurance challenge would be very cool with vex there would need to be a game where fully atonomous robots could play for hours every robot for itself and see who reigns victorious at the end.
An endurance challenge would be interesting, such as who can make the most efficient robot, but I think a self charging robot is way out of any begginer’s league.
Yeah its way too complicated to make a self sufficent robot in the beggining but I like the idea of an endurance challenge where the robots could play until their batteries failed or other mechanical failure so it would be the most efficent robot that would win.
Thanks for all the ideas guys! I know I might be a little bit over optimistic but I still have some experience in programming and robotics! We’ll see, I’ll post pics of my progression as I start building!
i JUST read in popular science that wireless power transmission is going to be possible starting this year. this just amazed me. it uses radio beams and converts them into energy when they devicein withen the radio’s range.:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Anyways, I’m in the process of drawing up my first robot, has anyone ever thought of building a self charging home base so that when the robot’s batteries are low, the robot can charge himself kinda like the IRobot (Rumba?)? If so, any hints or tips? Vex doesn’t have the technology for that kinda stuff yet so maybe you guys have heard of somewhere else I could research or something else I could do? I’m trying to make my robot 100% (or almost at least) autonomous, I know, it might be tough but I’m still optimistic!