Servo Breakout Board for FTC

Terminal Velocity team 27202

We are FIRST Tech Challenge Team 27202, Terminal Velocity, a high school student robotics team dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in FTC. Every season, teams are challenged to design and build a robot capable of solving complex engineering problems under strict rules and time limits.

This year, we set out to go beyond off-the-shelf solutions by developing our own custom servo distribution and sensing board. The board powers and monitors up to 6 servos, integrates current sensing and servo encoder wire over I²C, and delivers reliable data to our control system in real time. This level of feedback allows us to improve performance, protect components, and execute more advanced autonomous routines, giving us an edge at competitions.

We chose to build this project because we want to innovate at a level rarely seen in FTC, where most teams rely on basic wiring and prefabricated electronics. By developing custom PCBs, we not only expand what our own robot can do but also inspire other students to explore professional engineering practices.

Who We Are

We are a group of high school students from Minnesota who are passionate about robotics, engineering, and STEM. Our team includes builders, programmers, CAD designers, and electrical engineers in training, all working together to learn skills that extend far beyond FTC.

Our goal each season is not just to compete but to push ourselves to world-class levels by experimenting with advanced technologies like custom PCBs, new ways of manufacturing, and sensor integration.

Project Description

Components: Designed in Fusion 360, our board incorporates hall-effect current sensors, ADS1115 ADCs, JST-PH connectors, and TE Connectivity servo headers.

Functionality: The PCB sandwiches on top of the REV Servo Power Module which provides stable 6V power for the PCB to spread it to multiple high current servos. The board also monitors real-time current draw, returns servo 4th wire encoder signal, and communicates data via I²C.

Files & Documentation: Full schematics, PCB files, Code, and BOM are available at "https://github.com/org-ftc-27202/CustomServoPCB.git"

Impact: Ensures reliability during competitions, enables advanced debugging, and allows us to run complex scoring mechanisms safely.

This board is one part of a larger system we are developing to make our robot both highly competitive and technically innovative.

Words to PCBWay

We are inspired by PCBWay’s commitment to supporting students and makers worldwide. Partnering with PCBWay would give us the opportunity to take our electronics to a professional level and accelerate our journey toward competing at the highest levels of FTC.

Your sponsorship would not only help us manufacture this board, but it would also allow us to explore more ambitious projects during the season, like integrating special sensors, power management, and custom control systems into our robot. We would proudly showcase PCBWay as a partner of out team, and showcase the products to hundreds of students and mentors in the FTC community.

This board will be integrated into our 2025 and beyond competition robots, the platform we are engineering to compete at state and beyond. With your support, we aim to prove that high-school students can design and build technology that rivals professional systems. Our team has designed a unconventional drive base to compact our robot and make it light and agile, this drivebase uses servos as drive motors and this facilitated the need for a dedicated servo management board. The cad of it is shown below.