I have a Vex Field on carpet and it has come to my attention that fields should be on a hard surface to mimic the competition fields more closely. What are your experience with fields on different surfaces and what are your recommendations?.
carpet especially towards in winter will generate allot of static electricity. This can short out brain ports and cause disconnections. I would move it to hardwood or tile flooring
If your carpet is a low-pile and stiff commercial carpet, you probably won’t see much difference from placement on a proper hard floor.
If the carpet is more like a typical residential carpet, though, you might want to move it or put some plywood boards under your field or something.
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It’s not residential carpet, it’s a stiffer commercial carpet I think.
I noticed that people have been saying that carpet could short out a port, but I had two ports burn out within five minutes at a comp on a field that was on hard wood in a gym. Is this possible? If not what else might have caused this?
Yes, this is entirely possible. Carpet just increases the likelihood of ESD-related issues; hard flooring does not eliminate the problem.
There are many other topics discussing dead V5 ports; please continue your discussion there (if you have something to add to the discussion, that is).
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The fields were also not sprayed for static. that’s a good option too
With stiffer carpet it’s the static you have to worry about not the hardness of the surface, the static will when the robot is taken off the field, potentially cause static buildup. Try not running it on the carpet, only on the field, the carpet will almost certainly cause static buildup when the robot runs over it, as when you rub your hands over the carpet.
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