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Kiwi Drive Concept
I've been playing around with some ideas for a kiwi drive after watching 1114 this year, and 1425 in 2014. I also dug into the archives and took inspiration from 116's 2005 robot.
![]() Here's the Album containing different views of the drivetrain. Sorry about the render quality, it's the first one that I've done. I'd be interested to hear what people have to say about this unique drivetrain. |
Re: Kiwi Drive Concept
Kinda reminds me of the poor pit lighting from Palmetto this year... :P
On a more serious note, I remember 116 from 2005 in Annapolis. That was a cool concept then and this a cool concept now. |
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Thinking about these past efforts makes me really grateful for AndyMark and VexPro/WCP. Today's FRC teams can spend more time on tweaking and practice, because we have access to good COTS components. |
Re: Kiwi Drive Concept
Here's another working Kiwi drive:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35176 This was our robot for the 2011 game. Breakaway I would be a little worried about mounting Omni's sideways like that. Especially if the game is rough. In Breakaway we were constantly being hit. This would lift the corner of our robot and then slam it back down. |
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We are planning on experimenting with a Kiwi bot this off season as well. If next years game doesn't lend it's self to an omni drive robot, at least we learned something!
The way you have those three drives angled in, there is no need for the second wheel. It will never touch the floor. If it does, you have bigger issues to deal with! |
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What is the benefit of putting the wheels at such an angle? I wouldn't assume omnis are designed to handle that much loading at that angle. And it looks like it would add a lot more difficulty for the machining?
Is it a shock system to help guarantee that all wheels are touching the floor? |
Re: Kiwi Drive Concept
In general, three wheels will always be touching the floor no matter what angle they are at. The two reasons I see for using the nearly flat angle are 1) it lowers the center of mass, and 2) it moves the contact point outward just a little more from the center of the robot.
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For #2, this could also be done by putting the motors inboard of the wheels; the wheels could be just a fraction of an inch from the outer frame. |
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The idea is that each omni wheel can be retracted independently, giving the robot the ability to change its center of rotation about each pivot point. There's also the advantage of retracting all omni wheels when in scoring position so the robot becomes difficult to move. |
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Looking a little closer - what are those cans inboard of the gearboxes (one of them is partially obscured by the signal light)? If those are pneumatic cylinders, perhaps these raise the robot and lower the wheels to the floor?
Hmm, and there seems to be a foot midway along the short face of the frame. Is there some reason that you want to "raise the landing gear" and be stationary? Thinking up names for that - how about a kizzy drive? It sounds close enough to kiwi, and those of you who remember the Roots miniseries a few decades ago may recall that kizzy means "stay put". |
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The biggest issue is the one Wayne presented - wheels weren't meant to be loaded that direction. Omnis probably even more so - the whole point of omnis is that they don't exert a force parallel to the shaft. As a result, sound engineering would tend to reduce the sustainable force parallel to the shaft in favor of other requirements. |
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