MOAR POWAAH!!!

​By Daniel Brown

This year one of our biggest concerns was maintaining constant power for our robot.  In the past we have used rechargeable AA batteries that on several occasions lost too much juice to maintain the robot for the duration of a challenge or would bounce around in the chassis and randomly disconnect during a Pi-Noon battle...  So a big part of our early testing this year was in changing out the power plant for Hal 4k. After testing our prototype 18650 battery setup, we ordered more battery trays and new batteries. We now have 4 ready to go battery trays, and 2 spares! We also have a total of 12 18650 batteries now. If Pi-Wars 2020 goes as planned (I’ve been told Pi-Wars NEVER goes as planned), we should not even need to swap out a battery pack, let alone either of the spares we plan to have with us… Compared to last year, this is a major improvement considering the team almost lost power mid challenge in 2019 and had to recharge mid challenge multiple times. In the process of finalizing our battery setup, I learned how to solder (big thanks to Rob Garner, one of the programming instructors on campus here at CNM and a mentor here in HackerSpace for soldering lessons!). Below are some photos of our battery setup mid-completion. They still need shrink wrap and the wiring will need to be measured, trimmed, and cleaned up. This time next week, we should have enough powaah to jump start other teams robots if need be. ;)