Editing 1995 (section)

==Robot construction==
As was the norm for the era, the majority of robot components came from the [[kit of parts]] or [[Small Parts]] catalog. The Small Parts allowance for 1995 was $425, with some of the $500 budget already spent on two high-torque couplings to couple the drill motors to the drivetrain.
No more than four pulleys and/or sprockets and 10 feet of belt and/or chain from outside sources could be used, and these components had to be used in the drivetrain. Fasteners were not included in the parts allowance. A DEC LA75 dot-matrix printer was included in the kit, although like previous years the motors and electronics could not be connected to the control system.
Robots must fit unconstrained inside a 30 inch tall cylinder that is 36 inches in diameter at the start of a match and could weigh a maximum of 70 pounds including batteries. Adding or removing mechanisms that would "alter the operation of the machine" was not allowed after the first seeding match of a competition. Teams that competed at the [[1995nh|1995 New England Tournament]] were allowed to modify their robots for the five days following the competition before shipping the robot to the [[1995cmp|National competition]].

Robots had to display their sponsor and school name so that judges and referees could identify them during a match. Canonical team numbers were assigned, but were only used to order from Small Parts and pick up kits of parts.

===Control system===

<gallery perrow=3 heights=250px widths=300px>
File:43381_-_1995_kickoff.png|The transmit side of the control system, with two PC flight sticks and RNET radio [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/43381]
File:43382_-_1995_kickoff.png|The receiver box (lower middle) and relay box (upper right), with RNET radio, servos, limit switches, and two drill motor battery boxes [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/43382]
File:3441 - 1995 1995frc9 build frc45 robot.jpg|The receiver and relay boxes on [[1995frc9|team 45]]'s 1995 robot [https://www.frcarchive.com/index.php?q=post/view/3441]
</gallery>
Two off-the-shelf PC flight sticks from CH Products were included in the [[kit of parts]]. These plugged into the bespoke Transmit Box and allowed for three axis of proportional control from each joystick (two for the joystick itself and a third for a thumb wheel) with two digital buttons on each joystick. An additional port on the transmit box could be used to wire in an additional custom controller at the expense of some of the controls on the joysticks.

The receiver box directly output eight PWM signals which could be used to drive small servo motors, the Tekin speed controllers, or larger seat motors through the six-channel relay box. The relay box could be wired so that limit switches would turn on or off motor output independent of joystick control. PWM Y-cables could be used to trigger more than one relay from a single PWM output from the receiver box, allowing one control to activate multiple motors.

The transmit and receive boxes contained no software-programmable hardware, with joystick and button inputs just passing directly to the robot where the signals could be wired to speed controllers or relays. The two flightsticks' y-axis outputs were often wired directly to each side of the drivetrain, similar to the way a simple modern tank drive might be implemented in software. The transmit box did contain functionality to send inputs from different joysticks or button boxes plugged into its ports. Outputs by default assigned to the joystick buttons could be rerouted to trigger from the other "joypad" controller included in the kit. The other method of mechanically programming the control system was through wiring limit switches into the relay box, allowing for an activated switch to turn off a relay output, or a relay output to remain on until a switch is hit.

The transmit and receive boxes could communicate wirelessly using a pair of [[RNET]] radios or a tether cable and adaptor plugged directly between the two boxes. RNETs would be surrendered before competition began and operating in the pits required use of the tether and tether adaptor.

Four Delco [[seat motors]] and two Milwaukee drill motors with gearboxes were included as well as two Tekin reversing speed controllers. Two Textron pneumatic pumps and a selection of pneumatic hardware were also included.