1.1.6 - Power On

Objective: Power on last season’s robot, connect the driver station, and explain what Enable does. The robot changes. This sequence mostly does not.

Danger

Do not enable until a mentor is present, the robot is on the cart or blocked up, and everyone is clear of wheels and mechanisms. Disabled is the safe state. Enable means the code can command motors.

Three things have to be alive before a stick does anything: robot power, a link, and the Driver Station software. A charged battery with no link cannot be driven. A perfect link with the breaker off cannot be driven.

Power on

1. Make it safe. Wheels off the floor, or the robot blocked. Mechanisms clear of people. Competition battery, case not swollen, SB50 seats without force. Say “powering on.”

2. Plug in the battery. Red to red, black to black. If it does not seat, stop.

3. Breaker on. The large red 120 A breaker. Wait until the roboRIO or SystemCore and the radio finish booting.

4. Connect the laptop. Ethernet to the radio first. Wi-Fi only if there is no cable, and only the robot network, not school Wi-Fi. USB tether if you are debugging the radio.

5. Open the Driver Station. Team number matches this robot. Controllers plug into the laptop, not the robot. Leave it Disabled. Set Teleoperated for stick practice.

6. Read the lights. Communications, Robot Code, and Joysticks should be green before anyone talks about Enable.

7. Enable only with a mentor. Path clear. Press Enable. Press Disable, or the space bar, the moment anything unexpected moves.

A rested competition battery should read about 12.5–13.0 V. Under about 12.0 V at rest, swap the pack. Shutdown is Disabled, breaker off, then unplug if the robot is being stored.

If a light is red

Change one thing, then look again.

1. Breaker on, battery seated, radio light on.
2. Laptop on the robot network or the Ethernet cable, not school Wi-Fi.
3. Team number matches.
4. Communications red: reseat Ethernet at the laptop and at the radio.
5. Robot Code red: a programmer has to deploy. Not a battery problem.
6. Joysticks red: unplug and replug. The stick in your hand has to be the one the code expects.
7. Still dead: Disabled, breaker off, mentor. Do not start swapping CAN wires.

Brownout means the battery collapsed under load. Disabled, then swap or charge the pack.

Buttons

Enable does not map buttons. It only lets the running code act on the controllers. The USB tab shows the order. Swapping ports swaps driver and operator.

Input	Usual job	Where it is set
Left stick	Drive	Code
Right stick	Rotation	Code
Bumpers and triggers	Intake, score, climb	Code
Face buttons	Mode, cancel, stow	Code

To see a mapping without enabling: Disabled, Joysticks green, press one button, note the number, ask the programmer what it calls. Changing that job is a code change and a deploy.

Submit

With a mentor, power on and stop at Disabled. Use your @region15.org account.

1. List the order from battery plug-in to a green Communications light.
2. Name one red light and the first fix you would try.
3. Name one button and what the drive team uses it for.

Submit Your Power-On Check

Tell a drive-team or electrical mentor the form is in. Be ready to put the robot back to Disabled and breaker-off without being asked.