Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

At 696, we made custom wheels for years. When we easily bent our 2005 wheels (1st link) on multiple occasions, which really surprised me since the spokes were 1/4" thick. That inspired me to design a better wheel. That instance is what first caused me to learn how to do stress analysis and FEA, and in 2007, I assisted students with the design of a very lightweight (4 oz) 5 inch diameter CNC machined aluminum wheel (2nd link), that was incredibly strong. They had a design already, but with just a couple tweaks and a couple runs through FEA, as a mentor I was able to help them see the potential failure points, make the wheel at least twice as strong, and reduce the weight. This was real engineering, and not that picking parts out of a catalog isn't, but it's a different type of engineering. In 2014, we did some 4" wheels that really had some nice style to them, in addition to being lightweight. We've also done custom wheels in other years, like our 10" dish wheels in 2010, and 3.5" machined wheels in 2013, and custom hubs for mountain board wheels in 2016.

To me, a lot of the real "let's sit down and design and analyze and calculate this" type of engineering by and large has been on the decline in FIRST Robotics, and the "Let's open the catalog and find something that works" or "let's watch what other people do and do that too" is heavily on the rise. I don't want derail this thread this into a COTS vs custom debate, but while we have made our wheels in the past, I don't know if we always would in the future, and I kind of miss it. You see even teams like 254 using Colson wheels

For students, there is really something magical about designing and making your own wheel, and it's a lot of fun. But today, the competition is really more about time. The less time you spend designing and making things you can buy, the more time you can spend on the other things. And in some sense, I kind of hate that. I have a lab full of CNC machines, and we can manufacture anything. We bought VEX ball-shifters for our 2016 robot, and I have a stock of VersaFrame gussets and Versaplanetaries for our 2017 robot. Why? While we can manufacture literally just about anything a FIRST robot would ever need in our lab, we can't manufacture time. By buying COTS parts, we are buying time, and while I do like that, at the same time I don't.

Anyhow, back to the wheels.

In 2009, there was a team 13something (1388?) from an area near San Luis Obispo, CA that had a great 13lb flywheel gyro mechanism that allowed their robot to "lurch" forward when they tilted it, to push their opponents and pull the trailer. It was a great way to get more "thrust" in a game where you couldn't just add more traction, and it worked pretty well actually.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

A link to a post with a link to a stupid video is a troll post.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

How is a post a troll post if it links to a discussion on the same topic, including testimonies from Adam and Tyler, who not only are some of the most Respected mentors I know, but also some of the smartest.

If ANYTHING, it adds to the discussion by bringing relevant info from another thread.

And to be really honest, he linked you to a thread that you COULD have found if you searched.

Seriously?

There is a reason Mike Corsetto says "Steal from the best, invent the rest" in every post asking why 1678 is so good.

No one is trying to tell you to copy 2056. But, from experience and the obvious testimony in this thread, designing a custom wheel IS NOT the best use of time, resources, or knowledge. You'll find much better use of time and I think students would find a better experience designing a different custom mechanism, like maybe an elevator, a more complicated drive train(that uses COTS, most drives SHOULD), or something that is a bit more complicated than something I can make in about 3 clicks in CAD.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

Because it doesn't agree with his point.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

Wow, cell phone cameras have improved dramatically since 2012...

-Brando

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

Exactly, we do just that by copying designs other teams have used for custom wheels modifying as needed and making them for our robots. We also have an internal saying that we should only "build what we know" where we only build stuff we have built before and know the fine details of or are sufficiently confident we can pull off. We make that list longer in the off season by doing projects EXACTLY like this. We would have had pretty crappy bots if we hadn't first learned ourselves how to build an elevator off season 2014 and an articulated arm in off season 2015. A drivetrain is the SOUL of your robot, and a badly implemented drivetrain is the single quickest way to to have a shorter competition season.

"I have never built a WCD before and don't feel comfortable switching to this different type of design, so we are building one this off season so we don't make stupid mistakes this coming build season."

We used custom traction wheels in 2013 and 2014 because it mattered. In 2015 there was near zero reason for that level of traction so we ran colson. In 2016 we ran pneumatic and colson because we knew that the custom wheels would not provide the durability needed to survive the game. All those decisions were based off of prior experience, personal or leveraged from the community.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

Ignore the haters and just make your wheels. It's not a huge project in any case, and I'm not sure why people are getting so fired up over it.
A few google searches turned up some relevant threads:
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=118873
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=115976
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=77309
You might be better served conducting your search there.

As a side note, CD is getting awfully judgey lately. I'm not sure why people have to slam making custom wheels over and over again when they can just not post in the thread.
Maybe it's the offseason.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

FTFY

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

Welcome to #summerCD

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

No one is fired up over someone making custom wheels in the offseason. What sparked discussion was quotes like these.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

Since I got quoted on here, figured it would be about time to chime in :p

Devin stated a lot of our teams development over the past 4 years. Just as a heads up, the kids are designing a pneumatic catapult on a turret this off-season, pretty much just because we've never done one before. We'll train new kids and add two more mechanisms to our team knowledge base. Its a valuable process that I encourage other teams to try out (we stole the idea from 971 and 973)

"Steal from the best, invent the rest" is something I've been saying for a long time. I probably stole the quote from someone/somewhere, but its been so long I can't remember :p

Would it irk people in this thread to know I will sometimes encourage our students to copy designs even if they don't understand everything about the design they mimic?

Our students are some of the brightest kids I've met. I can say with 100% confidence they are 10x the engineer I was when I was a student in FRC. Their communication and technical skills amaze me every year.

If my students don't understand a few things, I won't lose sleep over it. Inspiration is why I'm here.

Regardless, good on you Clint, please share your results! We have some wheel CAD from 2014 on our site (I think!) if you're interested.

-Mike

BTW, funny story. We tried 3D printing some 4" wheels on our makerbot during the first week of build season 2014. Never again! We had Aluminum custom wheels back from our machine shop sponsor by week 3 that year... :) Live and learn!

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

841 has done the custom wheels R&D project, and the students involved at the time got some really solid benefits out of it. We still have the Google Doc that all the research was compiled into, and have used the polyurethane learning for other mechanisms since then.

A couple years down the line now, we've decided the last two seasons that Colsons make more sense on the actual robot, as they offer better durability and more predictable performance than the polyurethane tread we had on the custom wheels.

We've recently upgraded our machining capabilities (our first CNC equipment!!) and I'm thinking it might be a good year to suggest the students take another run at the wheel problem in the offseason. It's a nice simple piece that we can make "as complex as we want to" to try out the new machining abilities.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

The first is a question meant to refute the WW2056D statement, as I know they must R&D in the offseason.

The other is a statement that instead of blindly copying something, I prefer my students to understand why we do things?

How is either inflammatory?

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

After looking at the negative comments on my Rep, someone thinks I "dissed" Adam Heard. In no way shape or form was that my intent at all. I have PM'd him my apology for any perceived "diss".

The post that was referenced was not in anyway directed to anyone other that the one quoted in it.

Re: Who makes their own wheels?
 

I enjoy that the least inflammatory post I've made recently has sparked the biggest fire. Never change CD ❤️❤️❤️ xoxo