Kitbots after Week 1

[AustinH]

How have the Kitbot chassis held up after the week 1 events? Have any teams that use the AM14U had particularly good or bad experiences with them given the intensity and physicality of the defense this year? Is it worth adding additional reinforcements, and if so, what did you use?

[jee7s]

How have the Kitbot chassis held up after the week 1 events? Have any teams that use the AM14U had particularly good or bad experiences with them given the intensity and physicality of the defense this year? Is it worth adding additional reinforcements, and if so, what did you use?

There was a team at Alamo that got a whole bunch of wiring in their timing belt pulleys on a kitbot. I'm not sure if it was theirs or an opponents, but I do know some robots lost wiring on the field. The wire in the pulley was mostly the three conductor wire used for PWM signals, etc. That caused quite a twist to their frame from the stress on the axle that required a few changes to the spacers to get everything in line after the wiring was removed.

I can't say I saw any kitbots falling apart, but that doesn't mean that the game wasn't doing damage.

[Richard Wallace]

We used the AM14U chassis and are happy with it.

Our chassis includes several "upgrades" -- 28"W x 27.5"L with 8.76" and 12.6" wheelbases, belly pans, four 4" performance wheels with nitrile tread on short wheelbase, two 4" dual omniwheels on long wheelbase, three CIM single speed gearboxes (7.86:1), #35 chain drive with simple deflection tensioners, pontoon cover/stiffeners that support intake arm clevises. There are pictures of our chassis posted previously.

We also built a one-piece bumper with corners reinforced by aluminum angle inside, with backing pocketed to clear minor protrusions and to enable a tight fit between wood and metal. We think this really helped limit impact stresses.

TL;DR: the 2014 kit chassis is a good starting point. It just needs to be fed some steroids, as Karthik would say.

[nicholsjj]

We used the AM14U chassis and are happy with it.
TL;DR: the 2014 kit chassis is a good starting point. It just needs to be fed some steroids, as Karthik would say.

Robotics, the only sport in the World were encouraging steroid use will land you in the Hall of Fame.

[AustinH]

Yeah, on the upgrade front, we definitely went with different gearboxes, different wheels, polycarb bellypan etc. We do have a fairly substantial cross brace (1.25 aluminum box tubing, 1/8in wall) that doubles as a mount for several accessories, but my worry is that the provided churros that span the interior of the robot won't cut it. I would really, really love to be proven wrong.

Some of the photos of robot damage from this year are absolutely terrifying, especially the trashed cylinders. We have spares of the things that go outside of our frame perimeter. I was not expecting to need to have spares on hand for the internal guts of our robot.

[Max Boord]

Make sure you have a belly pan. We used ours to play D on our comp bot and in 1 hour of realistic practice the entire frame turned into a 45 degree parallelogram.

[IKE]

I was LRI at Southfield this weekend and saw a lot of kit-bot and improved kit-bots that faired very well. The architecture of the kit-bot was basically state of the art chassis for 2006-2008 if you just add in a set of shifters. A lot of great robots played really well with significantly less.

Structural bellypans are a great add on. Probably even above shifters. While it doesn't need to be made out of 1/4" steel, a good belly pan attached with rigid connection (not zip ties). If you have ever built a cheap set of shelves, the carboard panel for the back is more important than looks. It adds a ton to the structural rigidity of the shelves.

[gurellia53]

We used an AM14U with the 8wd upgrade and Vex Pro 3 CIM ball shifters. We also added a bellypan of perforated polycarbonate similar to this (http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0836.htm). It significantly stiffened our frame, was easy to bolt on, and was used as an electronics board. We also added some aluminum gussets and brackets to help add strength.

We beat our robot hard this weekend and had no issues with the drivetrain other than some field debris in one of the belts. I've been very impressed.

[JohnFogarty]

4901 used the kitbot with the 3CIM upgrades with a 0.125" Aluminum 3003 Belly-pan with much success. No damage whatsoever.

[Whippet]

Anyone have any feedback on the AM14U with the mecum upgrade package?

[Richard Wallace]

Structural bellypans are a great add on. Probably even above shifters. While it doesn't need to be made out of 1/4" steel, a good belly pan attached with rigid connection (not zip ties). If you have ever built a cheap set of shelves, the carboard panel for the back is more important than looks. It adds a ton to the structural rigidity of the shelves.Just to reinforce what Isaac says above, my team's previously mentioned belly pan is made of 1/8th inch aluminum with edge bends for stiffness. See pictures @averagejoes3620 on Twitter.

[rsisk]

Love the new kit bot. Only complaint, picked up a lot of carpet and tape in the wheels. With everything so close to the ground it really does pick up a lot of ground debris

[KCmoon]

From our team the only problem we had was that the wheels chipped. We will probably have to replace most of them as the treads were wearing very hard and our traction is probably different because of it.

[jeremylee]

From our team the only problem we had was that the wheels chipped. We will probably have to replace most of them as the treads were wearing very hard and our traction is probably different because of it.

Ours have some chipped lugs also, though it hasn't seemed to affect traction much. We have 3 days of practice before we bagged and a regional under our belt now. Looks like we could go another regional if we wanted to on the same set even though we may replace them. I think you could run the lugs flat if you wanted and keep going (basically be similar to a stealth wheel).

[Tim Lehmann4967]

We cut our AM14U into a square instead of long or wide. So far it has held up very well(knock on wood) and we have very minimal reinforcements. My only complaint is that the ToughBox Minis can't take three CIMs :D

[Ian Curtis]

We have yet to compete, but with our fully loaded robot (110-120 lbs with bumpers & batteries) we get some bouncing on very tight radius turns with the 1/2 wide 1/2 long square AM14U configuration. Not a big problem, but a minor annoyance. I suspect the critical point is somewhere north of 100 pounds, as we never noticed it until after the bumpers went on.

[hrench]

My team 1108 used the kit frame to win the Crossroads regional. We have stock wheels and stock gear-boxes but with up-ratio gears. We're about 28" square.

We've seen extensive wear on the wheel treads, but they don't seem to grip all that much less. Weighing 95 lbs, we're still able to push most robots, especially sideways. Across the front, we have an exposed section of the extrusion where we took a significant hit and bent it in about two inches. We bashed it back out and bolted a piece of steel bar-stock below the angle and it was okay through the finals.

With a slightly light robot, four CIMS and up-ratio gears, we've measured 110 lbs of pulling force and about 12 ft/sec. Great acceleration too. I think these numbers make you competitive in most arenas. We'll see how that works out for the Championships.

I think its' easier to build a robot on than the c-frame was, but on the downside, it takes away one more area to be creative from the kids. But we're a small team and saving the resources for the rest of the design was beneficial to us. It's also a change mounting bumpers to.

[Tom Line]

I was LRI at Southfield this weekend and saw a lot of kit-bot and improved kit-bots that faired very well. The architecture of the kit-bot was basically state of the art chassis for 2006-2008 if you just add in a set of shifters. A lot of great robots played really well with significantly less.

Structural bellypans are a great add on. Probably even above shifters. While it doesn't need to be made out of 1/4" steel, a good belly pan attached with rigid connection (not zip ties). If you have ever built a cheap set of shelves, the carboard panel for the back is more important than looks. It adds a ton to the structural rigidity of the shelves.

Ike, what you consider state-of-the-art right now?

[Tem1514 Mentor]

The kitbot with a nicely mounted set of bumpers will take and yes give hits::ouch:: as it comes out of the box.

Add good solid belly pans is the best place to start. We used 1/4 inch plywood.

But don't do what one of drivers did was to lose control in the school hallway and crash at full speed into a brick wall :yikes: without the bumpers installed. That took a hour of body work to get the bent frame straighten out.

[AustinH]

Figured I would give an update...

We are all very, very pleased with the resiliency of a properly reinforced AM14U kit chassis. Between PNW Glacier Peak and PNW Mount Vernon, we took hits strong enough to shear at least three 5/16 bolts holding our upper mechanisms onto our frame. The frame is still in great condition. Kudos to the designers for coming up with the kitbot design.

[cglrcng]

The kitbot with a nicely mounted set of bumpers will take and yes give hits::ouch:: as it comes out of the box.

Add good solid belly pans is the best place to start. We used 1/4 inch plywood.

But don't do what one of drivers did was to lose control in the school hallway and crash at full speed into a brick wall :yikes: without the bumpers installed. That took a hour of body work to get the bent frame straighten out.

So our 3/4" plywood belly pan, and the 1/2" Alum. bar stock (real bumpers beneath bumpers), actually we needed to extend the frame a half inch in front to get a chain sprocket for the collector just inside the frame perimeter on 1 end, and something much stronger on the other to mount the launching catapult upright to, so we spanned the inside frame rails w/ 1/2" stock there, and built a tank to protect the other tanks inside, (add a blade and eyes on the front, instead of tusks....(or is that the rear?)....it would remind you of lil' Blue "Dozer"), across both front and rear of the kit bot frame should fare OK this weekend? (Who said it should be a really low center of gravity game this year anyway? We did!)

It made us switch from chain and sprocket, to belt and pully for the very 1st time ever. Hope it was the right move.

[Tungrus]

At Southfield - MI week 1 competition kitbots did well, beyond our expectation. At one point we wished we had opted for kitbot, it would have saved lot of our time.

[IronicDeadBird]

At Southfield - MI week 1 competition kitbots did well, beyond our expectation. At one point we wished we had opted for kitbot, it would have saved lot of our time.

No shame in the kit box at all as a starting point.
STARTING POINT.
Have fun with it augment it to play the way you want modify it to drive the way you want, the reason why its sold is because its viable. Flat field, no obstacles, driving isn't all about machine there is skill involved. I've seen robots that are well equipped have drivers that obviously had no idea how to put up with mecanum robots.

[safiq10]

Team 2950 played a really strong defense and even defended two bots at once from getting the ball. Defense was really nice with the AM14U. We run VEX DT wheels with a wide base frame. With our own electronics board.