I'm sorry if this question sounds really stupid, but I am so lost it's not even funny.

The tutorials recommend that rechargeable batteries be used to power the EZ-B, but because I didn't have any on hand, I thought that using some cheap $1 batteries would be alright, so long as the voltage added up to a combined 9V between the 6 AAs in use. This was not the case, and 6 new batteries fresh out of the package would lead to the EZ-B telling me "My battery is low" after less than a minute after connecting them. I FINALLY got my hands on some rechargeable batteries, I made sure they were fully charged before resuming my tinkering... but now I can't even get them to connect. No blue light, no little start-up sound, no nothing.

Please help. It's getting really frustrating seeing all of these amazing projects being accomplished with this platform, and I can't even do the simplest of tasks. What am I doing wrong here?