Question about wheels
 

Where are we allowed to buy wheels? (Anywhere?)

Are there any restrictions on type/nature of the wheels?

Furthermore, are there any restrictions on the size or shape of the wheels?


Randy and Ken,

team #820

The only place I know that we can buy wheels is Skyway.

Visit http://www.skywaytuffwheels.com
Their wheels are pretty cheap. Most of them are under $20. Any wheel from Skyway is allowed. But of course you can make your own wheels

we don't plan on "making our own wheels"

Basically, we're trying to figure out if we are allowed to purchase wheels from an alternate supplier.

Randy, I beleive us canadian teams were granted a little breathing room, if you find a supplier of exact duplicates of restricted parts you can buy there. Namely SPI stuff.

Talk to you main contact (probably you teacher) Mark Breadner sent out a e-mail a while ago about a canadian skyway wheel distributor.

Word of caution...

Buying wheels, if they make high traction wheels great, but those wheel chair wheels are useless. That is, unless you cut them up. If you don't have the time to build wheels, ya know do what you can. If you have a little extra time, look into building wheels. Two plywood circles spaced apart with cut up wheel chair wheels will do a great job. Shoot, our tread last year was made out of cut up wheel chair wheels, chain, spacers, and aluminum channel.

Wheels
 

I suggest tracks myself, that is what we are using. If you use chain on the tracks watch binding it up when you turn. Ask Adam about their robot last year. They had a great design and yes it was totally Lexan but I think they had a problem turning. But if you choose to use wheels I would suggest going with the ones for motorized wheelchairs as they have tread on them if not you can always cut tread or attach some form of cleat onto the wheel.

Last year our team used the wheelchair wheels. We used a sloldering iron with a "V" shaped tip to cut tread into the tires. We had excellent grip. We could tow a fully loaded stretcher over the bridge without any loss of traction.
We cut the treads in at about .25" apart and .125" deep.
Hope this helps.

Wayne Doenges

Wheels vs track
 

I was just suggesting tracks as an opinion. However, with 130lbs of machine if you position the weight over the drive wheels you are going to get pretty good tracking on carpet so I don't think teams are going to have to worry about that too much unless you really mess up with the weight. Plus the feild is level

jonny,

Lets remember, the team that designs for "pretty good" traction will be beat by the team with pretty better traction.:D

We're doing lexan wheels with aluminum cleats. Gotta make sure they dont tear up carpet, though. Also heard that the pnuematic wheels from skyway work good.

We're building "drums" and wheels, both secret materials....right.