Not sure which subject category to pick…not enough batteries means no comm/no control so here goes:
We will be introducing 90 middle school students to competitive robotics via VEX IQ gear. We sponsor a VEX IQ team (rookies this year) that almost made it to Worlds. All 7th grade students. These students will be setting up this year’s VEX IQ competition field on-site at NASA. Every 40 minutes a group of 15 middle school students will engage the VEX IQ competition field for about 30 minutes after our rookie team gives them a brief introduction to the game and the gear. There will be a single elimination ‘skirmish’ amongst the 15 students. There will be 6 groups of 15 students matriculating through this ‘venue’ every 45 minutes.
As rookies we have no idea how many brain batteries, spare controllers, controller batteries, chargers, etc… we should have on hand for such an activity. Right now we have 6 robots that will be built from 6 Super Kits. Assuming we have 4 robots in action for 20 minutes out of 30 minutes, back to back every 40 minutes, for 4 hours; how many batteries should we have on hand for each of the 6 robots (brain and controller)? how long should we expect it to take to recharge the batteries? what other spares should we have on hand for such an event?
Let us see if we understand the requirements properly first:
You will have 4 robots competing simultaneously.
These robots will participate in 20 minute-long events with 10 minute breaks.
Then, you specify there is an event every 40 minutes for 4 hours long (240 minutes), which would indicate 6 events total of 40 minutes.
Therefore, is there 6 events of 40 minutes or 8 events of 30 minutes?
Regardless of the situation, if your robot battery is fully discharged during an event, you will most likely need a few hours to charge (2-3 hours according to VEX) it. This means that any robot battery pack that is discharged too much to complete a full event (or close to that level that it would be a risk) would become completely useless during the competition since it would take too long to recharge.
To be on the side, you’d want 1 full robot battery pack per event per robot.
If you have 6 events and 4 robots participating in each event, that is 24 robot battery packs. If you have 8 events instead, that would be 32 robot battery packs.
Of course, if a fully charged robot battery pack can last you 2 events (or more), simply divide the total amount of robot battery packs quote above by the number of events one charge is good for.
We recommend that you do a few tests in preparation to see how long a robot battery pack lasts for one of your event and check if one charge is enough (with a safety margin) for 2 or more events.
We hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Thanks for the quick response. We will have 6 events with 4 robots active per event…so 24 batteries is the answer. We now have 19 batteries. So I will need 5 more.
Good luck with the competition!
Thanks for the well wishes. It is a busy yet fruitful day.
