Wheels or Treads
 

What is your team using? Please dont vote(but feel free to post ;) ) personal beliefs, I wanna see what teams have decided.

ours?
 

i personally wanted to use monkeys :D but the idea was ruled out when something went horribly, horribly wrong.......:D :D :D . nah, we're usin wheels.

i wanted to use treads for king of the hill, but i stand by my teams decision to use wheels. we chose wheels over treads because of the grating that we have dubbed the "cheese grater". we are afraid that if we try tank steering with treads on the grating that we may loose a tread (or two).

Monkey's don't sound useful. but i was a little upset that they put on the flow chart that we can't use gerbil's as a power supply :-P

You can pretty much rule out steel tread like the Tecknokats use. Can you see a steel tread robot going up the ramp, only to slide back down. Also it would be easy to push a steel tread bot sideways. I don't see too many treaded robots because of what oreocookeee mentioned about getting the tread caught in the mesh.
Another thing to worry about is knobby tires. They will probably have the same problem with the mesh ramp :ahh:
All in all, it will be an interesting game.
Go Dean and Woodie :]

Its horrible that the game is made that metal cleats cant be used, but its officially listed as illegal :mad:

Gerbils may have been outlawed, but as far as I can tell, there is no prohibition against hamsters!

-dave

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Y = AX^2 + B.... ehhh, whatever.

We have a little somethin special in mind but its top secret;)
eric b

We're going to harness cats to pull our robot. Now, if we can just figure out how to herd them...

Andrew,
Team 356

I don't think that cats are on the restricted materials list... so that makes them legal. And, their claws are not metal or hard plastic. Imagine how well a cat could grab ahold of that grating material... hmmm. :)

Andy B.

I wish we could vote for more than one like </Hint> Wheels and Feet</Hint> oh well I guess I cant tell you about our design. hehe

It makes perfect sense tho.

Last year the rule was that your drive train couldn't chew up the carpet. That rule was ignored in a big way by lots of teams. And, the ref's didn't enforce it. End result = lots of competition carpets are chewed up. So, now it will be harder to do this.

Also, the polycarbinate at the top scatches fairly easily, you got metal cleats running over that, watch out.

People just need to be more creative now that screws and cleats are out :)

I completely agree Harrison.

Now never call me during Calculus again. I thought it was someone important. :D

ok, I'll call you in Data Managment next time :P

...either way we're 2 seats apart....lol

It's high density polyethylene (hdpe) make sure you aren't confusing the two as they have different characteristics.

Don't forget that at the top and the base of the ramp you only have two points of contact. Due to this, there is no advantage to track on the ramp unless you are able to get up there first.

Yes indeed - my mistake.

I meant the polyethylene.

Either way, we have been playing around with the piece we got in the kit, the stuff does get scuffed up fairly easiy, and we noticed that it seems to be even more slippery when it is scuffed....Is that just us? or anyone else find that as well?

Hey guys, a SEGWAY (ad sic nauseum) from the animals pulling the 'bot... our team has decided on Brecoflex treads, rubberized and self-tracking... we found that after repeated use, the big black, supercool wheels scratched the HDEP quite a bit. The scratched surface got slicker and slicker as it got more and more scratched. Everyone probably already has design ideas, but the wheels are going to get harder and harder to manage up there... so check out some brecoflex... just hope the "cheese grater" doesn't get us.
Doom, Doom doom... waffles!

one night i borrowed the piece of polyethylene (or whatever it is) to look at. i got home and my mom suggested i try out her curling gripper (the shoe that grips the ice) and surprisingly it worked very well! :D but one thing i'm not to sure about... is when its on the "cheese grater" as someone said.... but i'm keeping my fingers crossed

i hope people have some luck finding some good grip cause everyone (especially kings of the hill) are gonna need it!

What specific Brecoflex model are you guys using.

Our team has experimented with double sided timing belts on the "cheese grater". We found that when the distance between the grooves on the timing belt is correct it sits perfectly between the metal bars going up the ramp. It was nearly impossible to get it to slide down even with a very small normal force.

See this thread for info about what wheels work well

Cory