We got some better wheels. We can gear it to run 3-4 feet per second with 4 motors and not slip.

We think it will be better, although We will miss not being able to fly over the ramp daredevil style.

And what happens when you land right on the top of another robot? Will you be trapped? Will you wreck their robot?


I'm not dissing you, just wanted to point out some scenarios that could happen- but if it does happen, you better catch it on video

Everyone seems to be worried about the collisions on the top of the ramp. I say don't worry! The containers crushing and shattering into a million pieces when two robots hit it from both sides withh be MORE than enough of a cushion :-)

Man, i hope they bring extras.

Well not to brag, but our last years robot could cross the field turn around and come back in 10 seconds. We hit 10.4 FPS at the brunswick eruption with our 2 speed tranny and won the speed contest, one problem we could not hit full speed because the playing field is too short. On an open 100 feet of space we hit 15 FPS finishing the length in 6.6 seconds.

I can't wait to see the chaos that will ensue at the regionals, two words CRUNCH CRUNCH:ahh:

hrm
 

well, again like last year our team wasnt all that fast, 7fps in high gear.

in the canadian regional, there was one match in specific, where team 188 (props you guys were awesome) ran out crazy fast and got both goals. they must have been going at least 10 fps

but for some reason our robot grabbed their robot and 2 goals and pushed it ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE FIELD.

sure, they had the 2 goals in winning positions in the first 15 sec.

that didnt matter at all, we dominated that match..


will it be similar this year? yes.


sure they may get to the ramp first, up onto it first, but there is plenty of time to turn their lead around. 2 minutes is practically a life time.

Translation:
This bot was geared too high.
It's acceleration wasn't high enough.
It had plenty of speed, but it could never reach it.
They should have geared for a more attainable top speed.

Learn from this! If you can never REACH your top speed, why bother gearing the bot that high? Your only wasting motor torque. Remember folks, as you gear your bot higher, you lose output torque and acceleration...

Re: hrm
 

188's drivetrain died in that match.
They had a shifting 2 motor combiner box on each side of their robot. Had their robot been functional, you wouldn't have been able to touch them.

Props to 188 for an AMAZING drive in 2002.

We got our full size ramp today. It is awesome. We only have 1/3 of a side done with the actual wire mesh though.

I would love to see a team jump the ramp and land on the wire mesh on the other side. It is bouncy enough that they would probably flip their bot. That would be great.

We're a rookie team and we are using a four wheel drive system using the two drill motors. We are just going for the power right now. We are using 9" pneumatic slick tires, They grip good on the top and the mesh, we haven't got our carpet yet. I'll be happy tommorow when we finish mounting the controls and get our first opportunity to drive over it.

Its like 0 degrees outside right now, I hope we don't have school, more bot building time.

You guys are forgetting update six. If your tires spin during autonomous mode you're disabled until it's driver time. With so much speed, it is quite possible you will spin your wheels on the slick ramp top.

uh huh.
 

hah. thats probably why their wheels were spinning the whole time right? HAH. i have the match on video, perhaps ill digitize it.

Actually conservation of momentum would keep the robot going up and over the top of hte ramp until it reaches something that stops it. I get a bad feeling when everyone is expressing their speed in fps when I'm expressing it mph(5 to be exact).:) Eckk with the short wheel base that our robot has this thing will be hell to control.

All you guys claiming to go 20 fps.............

If you're on our alliance, don't worry; we'll have enough power to push you up the ramp when your motors stall out.

If you're our opponent, would you prefer that we drive over top of you, or just push you out of the way? Please let us know prior to the start of the match so we can load the appropriate autonomous code.

Any questions about our speed or power - the 2002 finals video is still on the NASA archive, and this year's 2 speed gearbox is the next generation. Stronger, lighter, more power.

'nuf trash talk. See you on the field, boys.:D

Yeah power isn't really that necessary this year from the way first designed the game and from what they gave us in the kit to make the preassembled gearboxes. Remeber power is useless if you can't use it and all you end up is spinning your wheels.

It's actually the other way around. If the motors are geared for torque, it's more likely that the wheel torque will be higher than the friction force between the wheel and the ground. A motor geared for speed most likely won't have enough torque to spin out any wheel worth having.

That'd be awesome to see the finals- would you have the link to those videos? I checked NASA's website and they didn't seem to have anything recent- thanks