How are you Driving?
 

How is everyone driving? I feel like most of the collecting and shooting mechanisms this year will be very similar, but from the few teams I've heard from their drive trains have varied greatly. This year is very unusual with an open field, and no safe zones... but it seems some teams are going for speed, others for power, others for maneuverability. Will the drive systems be what sets some teams apart this year?

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Our team is using the AndyMark 6-wheel kit drive train since we have no experience with anything more complicated. I feel like good omni-directional systems could be a huge boost this year if done properly. Unfortunately though, many teams will probably not spend enough time perfecting/driving their drive train, and will end up shooting themselves in the foot.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Octocanum. Every year we make it better than the year before. :D

Re: How are you Driving?
 

West Coast Drive is best coast drive.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We will be running our Legendairy Octocanum drive, now with 35 chain.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

West Coast Best Coast!

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Why not belts?

We're using belts, VEXPro mecanum wheels, and 2" Colsons with tread cut into them.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

East Coast. Tried and true.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

The way our octocanum system works, 3 inch Colsons are held in their own modules to make the modules as small as possible (and in turn lighter). When we shift, the sprocket on the mecanum wheel and the sprocket on the colson wheels get a 1/8 of an inch closer together. We use chain because the teeth are larger on a sprocket than on a pulley. In the end we only add less than 5 lbs to a normal mecanum system which sounds like a decent trade off, especially when all you have to do to switch to normal mecanum (because plan B is a great thing to have) is just unbolt the modules.

Our very early prototype

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Cool! We use 2" Colsons to make the drivetrain as light as possible, but both wheels and the linkage are contained in a single pod. The first 5-ish seconds of this shows a prototype of our original system with 4" roughtop wheels. It's now a lot smaller, a lot more compact (doesn't come above the frame), uses smaller pistons to shift drive modes, and has even better traction on smooth surfaces without sacrificing carpet traction.

If we have the weight, we're likely going to add four mini-CIMs to the drivetrain--but we have to hold off on that until we're sure we can swing it.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Darn it...I'm on the west coast :D

We are using Mecanum DT this year. It will be a similar drivetrain as last year, but with many tweaks, performance impovements and better code. We might switch wheels too, though we haven't really decided yet. The AM wheels held up better than we expected, and only required some graphite-lube, once in a while!

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We're doing a nonstandard 6 wheel drive. Some adjustments had to be made to the standard 6WD setup in order for our CG and weight distribution to not have adverse effects on our ability to turn and maneuver.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Why?

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We are exited to by going with a swerve drive. I'm confident that it is the best drive train for the job. That is reinforced by the relatively large percentage of swerves in the poll so far.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

It seems a clear majority are going with the standard 6/8 wheel tank, as is our team. What about other specs? Wheel size? type of wheels? two speed/single speed transmission? 6 cims? 4 cims? what will your floor speed be?

Re: How are you Driving?
 

If I can make the quick argument here. West coast drive is extremely light, provides a very large wheel base, keeps the chains or belts protected and properly tensioned. In addition all of the parts to make one are now available OTS and it's been iterated to near perfection by teams like 254 and 973 if you want to find look for examples on how to do implement it most effectively.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We are driving wide with a 6 wheel WCD. We are using the vex 3.25" wheels and two 3 CIM Ball shifters geared for about 6fps and 16fps.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Is it my imagination, or does the chain tension change noticeably when switching from mec (tight) to std (looser)

Re: How are you Driving?
 

That is why I noted it is very early, we redid the pistons (longer stoke and larger bore) before last season so now it is tight in both position, however we found last season that 25 chain would stretch to much so we switched to 35 chain. We have not had an issue with it since.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We're using 8 4" VexPro traction wheels. We're also making a plate-aluminum chassis for the first time in my team's history, as well as switching from our custom Thunder Drive transmissions to West Coast Product's 2 CIM Dog Shifter.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

I'm excited we're using octocanum again. The new VexPro wheels make packaging everything within the smaller frame perimeter a lot easier.

http://imgur.com/Xel5dWw

Re: How are you Driving?
 

As usual, very slick!

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We're doing the KOP frame with a 28" square base and Sonic Shifters with 4 CIMs.

We've never done shifters before and the new KOP chassis makes upgrading easy.

Should be interesting... Haha.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Technically you're a LONG way from any coast :p

Re: How are you Driving?
 

What is the reasoning behind trying to make your drive-train as light as possible? Is it simply to save weight-space for manipulators?

Re: How are you Driving?
 

East Coast, Beast Coast?

Go Colson!

Re: How are you Driving?
 

In support of this FRC558 is running an 8WD with 4"x2" Colsons and #35 Chain.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

3467 will be running 6wd 4in x 1-1/2in Colson wheels and 3 CIM Ball Shifters.

Its time we catch on to the East Coast Conspiracy of Colsons.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

Adding weight is a lot easier and less stressful than removing weight.

Re: How are you Driving?
 

We're using an all gear 10WD using the 4" VexPro DT wheels powered by the Vex 3 CIM ball shifters - Link

Re: How are you Driving?
 

6WD with 4" VexPro DT wheels, belts, and a single speed gearbox. We tried to keep our drive train as simple and robust as possible while still giving students working on the drive train a good amount of experience designing custom parts.

Unfortunately, our plans to get drive bases up as quickly as possible have fallen a little bit out of whack due to VexPro delays and some problems with machining. Luckily we're still about twice as far as we were at this point last year.