USBgear 7 Port USB 3.0 Hub in Driver’s Station for Robotics Competition

CoolGear Inc. has been developing, manufacturing, and providing premier computer peripherals since 1997. We’re continuing to develop advanced technology and manufacture quality products for various industries.

In addition to our list of industries, we can add competitive educational robotics environments!

Coolgear answered a call received from Team BJORG. Team BJOG (Bloomington Jefferson Outstanding Robotics Group) consists of a group of robotics students from Jefferson High School.

Team BJORG approached Coolgear in the hopes of acquiring two USB 3.0 hub to

accommodate the USB connections in their design of the driver’s station. Coolgear was glad to help the team out; they used the both USB 3.0 hub 7 ports (USBG-BREC307) to connect the 3 touch screen displays, 3 joysticks, 20 buttons and switches.

Team BJORG, a participant in FIRST robotics competition designed and built a Driver’s Station or control panel for the control center of their robotics entry. (“FIRST” is an organization inspiring young people to embrace creativity and engineering ingenuity.) The Driver’s Station is a uniquely designed wood console engineered to accommodate the on-board electronics it uses in the competition.

The USB 3.0 7 Port Hub Features are:

• Includes a charging function to power each port up to 900mA, enough for normal charging.
• Adds 7 USB 3.0 ports via its included Type-A to Type-B Cable
• Bus-Powered with Limit current protection.
• Backward compatible with USB 2.0/1.1

  

• Supports Super-Speed USB 3.0 over each port with transfer rates up to 5Gbps.
• Includes a charging function to power each port up to 900mA, enough for normal charging.
• Compliant with Fast Charging for international battery charging 1.2 Standard Protocol and Smart Control.
• Support included for Plug-and-Play and hot swapping. No driver installation needed.
• Compatible with all operating systems
• Dimensions in Inches: 4.625in (L) x 1.691in(W) x .974in(H) with ears 5.241in(L)
• Dimensions in MM: 117.47mm (L) x 42.95mm(W) x 24.73mm(H) with ears 133.12mm

Find more about the BJORG robotics team on their website’s BJORG Legacy page.

As a result of using the 7 port hubs, the team of engineers used up to 15 USB port connections to handle their incorporated electronics. They were able to mount the hubs to the inside top their console easily for operation and control of the robot.

The team finished enough of the driver’s station to compete in two 2018 competitions. The USBG-BREC307, USBgear’s USB 3.0 hub, powered the LattePanda single board mini PC while in action!

The source pictures included in this post are from the team’s website at the Medtronic Regional competition where they competed with a record of 6-3 finishing 10th out of 60. Great Job Team BJORG!