Motors
 

So, since we know that there will be a change up in motors, what motors will be gone, and what will replace them??

i here that chalupa's might stay and the drills are going due to the fact that bosch is no longer making that model. this info was posted earlier in the season on CD so search through one of the motor threads i'm sure theres a hint there

(shhhh) I know this, I just want to see if anyone has some crazy ideas like making every bot drive off of the johnson motors we got last year.....:D

We've had two or three different versions of drill motors in the 6 years that I've participated. I think that they will stay (assuming FIRST's supplier doesn't stop donationg) as they are still the easiest to hook up for a simple drive train.

from what i heard, atwood in, new bosch model

From what I have heard, there won't be any motors (Chiaphuas, Johnsons, Boschs, or anything else) in the kits. Instead, we will get a box containining 144 servos, modified for continuous rotation (like the ones in the EduRobotics kits). The trick will be to figure out how to gang 47 of them onto one shaft for the drive systems!

-dave

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My mind goes numb.

I heard that they were sending a live crate with some hamsters in it

by only having one previous year experiance i cant really take a guess, but i was happy with our drill motor configuration, even though we had a drill/atwood trans, that never got working how we wanted it, we just took them off...I cant wait to get that big box of parts!

Yeah this years challenge is to build a walking machine that doesn't use motors!!!!! Im just kidding. Of course what else could we do if we had no motors.

You can make stuff move with pistons, y'know.

We could have all pneumatic power of course there is a motor in the compressor.

All in favor of using lawnmower engines raise hand.

/me raises hand.

Oooh, you beat me to it! That's what I was going to say! ;)

- Katie

Errr yeah that what i was implying. It really wouldn't make much sense to try and make the wheels of a robot move with linear motion. If I had to I would go and build a legged machine. Inertia labs uses a motor that uses pneumatics as its power supply but... its really dumb for our purposes.

Meet my friend the steam locomotive.

wouldn't that really be tough on the battery?

Why not make a robot that can generate it's own energy off it's momentum?/movement?

That would work only if you had 100% efficiency. It would never be that efficient.

I still say go with lawnmower engines, or at least weedwacker ones.

theres a small problem here - what happens when you want to change directions with a weedwacker or lawnmower engine - are you going to devise some sort of clutch and gearshift mechanism? i hope not. I'll take my nice drill motors :)

Tom

Well, you would have to have clutches on each engine no matter what so you are not moving all the time. As for switching directions, you would have an engine for each side of the robot right? So, in your transmission, you would have to have an extra gear on each side that is put into the driveline when desired to reverse the direction of rotation. Or you could have steering brakes but you still couldn't go backwards. Hmmm.

When you want to change directions with a weedwacker or lawnmower engine, NOTE, you only have 1 motor, and perhaps the rear axle gets the power (or front),

either way, then you have to find a way to turn the front or back wheels of the bot to steer :)

WHICH PROBABLY CAN BE DONE WITH PNEUMATICS (BUT IT WILL BE SLOW)

I second this motion

Me got a lawnmower. Anyone got Gas

At this point I'd like to call the question. Who is in favor of ending debate and taking a vote?

Oh yeah, pneumatics. That would be perfect for steering, except you can't make a pneumatic piston stop half-way. Perhaps hydraulics? I would go rack and pinion but the idear is to not have any motors.

Chooo choooo...... Chuga Chuga Choo... Chooo.... If I had to pick between a robotic train and a walking machine I pick the cool machine that walks.

Yes, you can.

I didn't discover this trade-secret, though, so I'll leave it to the team that knows to share it - if they're inclined.

But, it can be done.

Yeah, but it required some pneumatics part that was offered in 2001...

It wasn't in the 2002 kit... if it was there, I'm sure people could have figured out how to make it stop half way. Believe me, I did our pneumatics this year, and short of cutting off the air supply (squeezing the tube), there isn't any viable way of cutting the air flow to the cylinders.


The guy from the team who figured this out told me at the beginning of the build that the part isn't available in the kit...

our 2001 bot could stop the piston where ever we wanted, and believe me, the parts were in the 2002 kit

I want to see someone make a hovercraft bot...I doubt our little pumps could hold one up, though (much less allow me to ride on it :D)

we made a hovercraft last year with a really big muffin fan, the one in the kit. it worked for about 2 minutes, and then fell apart

Krass, we need to talk...
 

eMail me here within the neighborhood of soon so as we can discuss our ideas again. Thanks, Michael.

Well, one way would be to use 2 solenoids...

One solenoid would be always on to fill, and would only be used to let air out.

The other solenoid would be in serial after the first one and would be used as a control valve. The release port would be plugged...

OK one more vote for a lawn mower engine, and hydraulics!

But I will bet up to and including 25 cents on Drill motors still being with us.

I'll bet another quarter that I will NEVER again try to build a drive train that doesn't actually move by the 5th week. (third week...maybe)

Eric Stokely

How in the world did you manage to pull that off??? Those fans, no matter what size, don't even have enough power to lift themselves off the ground!!!

Trust me, I tried. I had like 15 of them from this summer's big bargain up in FIRST land!

I believe he was referring to a model hovercraft with a rubber or plastic skirt. It would fill up with somewhat compressed air lifting the device off the ground.

No?

Try an alternative power source - some of our kids pointed an air gun hooked to a big honkin' compressor at the fan blades and fired away. The result was quite entertaining, although half of the people in the woodshop had to hit the deck.... :-P

I seem to remember something about combustable fuels being a no go...

Back on topic here, my sources tell me that the Chiapuah (Atwood) motor will return, but it will be a different model with a more standard gear pitch on the output shaft.

The drill motor will return unchanged, but we will have a new model of transmission (with 4 planetary gears instead of 3).

I do admit, however, that a box of hamsters would be nice.