Who Likes Wheels?
 

OK, now that it is the offseason, many of us are coming up with concepts to possible use next year. Lots of people are also going over their favorite features of other teams machines. Why don't we share some info?

Wheels are fundamental to the operation of a FIRST robot. What types of wheels does your team prefer, and why?

If you buy your wheels, please list (and say why):

Source
Material
Size
Durometer rating (if applicable)

If you make custom wheels, Please list (and why):

What materials you use
How they are designes/assembled
What the wheels use as tread material and how it is fastened to the wheel

Don't feel left out if you like tracks! Tell us about them as well!

Hopefully everyone can get share some good info that we can all benefit from.
Thanks!

Rob

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Every year I explain this to an onlooking kid or a judge, I get the same response: "Wait... what the... is that wood?"

For several years, 188 has gone with a very cheap and effective method of making our own wheels. Once the gearbox design is completed and we decide what size wheels are optimal, we simply make them ourselves. A few pieces of plywood, a lathe, and some carpenter's glue do the trick. As you can imagine, the time it takes to make cylinders of wood is well within one night and can be performed by one or two people. We've experimented with a number of things including metal C-channel (back when that was legal) and numerous rubber treads, which we only have to fasten on with wood screws (they are far enough in that they don't contact the carpet, but still worry rookie inspectors every time). Sometimes we modify the tread's shape for lateral motion. We bolt in a sprocket and Forstner out some material to finish off. People are always surprised by the amount of traction we get from wood and rubber screwed together, but usually don't even realize that our robots have wooden wheels to begin with, because we paint them metallic colours. It looks pretty cool.

Anyway to sum it up, we get awesome traction, wheels to our specifications, and low weight, all for a lower price than getting them made or buying them off the shelf. Ghetto? I think not.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Well.....
Last year we experimented with gum rubber. MMMMM I lub that stuff.
As some or many may know, we cut out roughly 8" circles of 1" gum, and then cut the middle out of them to make it lighter in the final design. We then took 2, 1" thick gum rubber circles (cut out with hole saws) and sandwiched them in 3 pieces of 1/8" aluminum and secured them tightly together with screws. EW also made hubs to attch sprockets to, out of round stock aluminum 3" I think. We ended up with 4 wheels that had 2 gum rubber cuts in side. 8 traction points. The wheels were, dually's if you will. The gripped like mad. We still can boast no person can puch or robot. We haven't tested on other bots cep for matches and stack guarding (we would tip over before these wheels would slide, (we didn't tip)). They were nice. I rember one match in a mini were 341 (Daisy) tried to take down our 4 stack. They ended up pounding away at us and bending 1/8" physical limits for our arm, but the stack stood. Their drivers were persistent, and would not give up. That was a fun match ;) .
Man I love those wheels. And I think, if memory serves, we won the KOH (king of the hill) contest at Ramp Riot. Because of their traction on the ice.

They wieghed about 8 lbs each though. We will find a way to get them back, and underweight if need be, I am sure of it. mwahahahaha.

-Henry

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

http://www.skywaytuffwheels.com/2002/products_002.htm

Basic 9 inch or so skyway wheels. They work great....enough traction...but not too much like those pneumatic wheels...where you can't turn.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Hence the joy of a 2 wheel drive conversion system. :)

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

This year, ours weighted around 2 lbs. (with sprokets and chains) and lathed down to as much as possible cuz of the weight... But a word of advice... MAKE SURE YOUR SCREWS ARE WELL FASTENED!!! Let's just say we had an incident once with our programmer and our robot doing something bad...

Note: It wasn't any of the student's idea to choose the colour gold for our wheels...

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

We decided to use 8" pneumatic wheels on the front and back this year. We learned a couple things:
1. We had amazing traction. With a 4 motor drive system and these wheels we had excellent torque and the pneumatic wheels could really transfer that power to the carpet.
2. We also learned that with both the front and the back using pneumatic wheels we had poor maneuverability. We had the bouncing while turning problem.

We'll definately be experimenting with using a different wheel types on one side during the off-season; I'm pushing for omni-wheels.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Yep, I remember that very well.

Weren't we against eachother at several minis? I can see that scene all over again, like 2 or 3 times, just you guys zooming under the bar and guarding your stack. We couldn't budge ya (but then yeah, our drivetrain was dead. It's so sad now, daisy2 barely moves at all).. When she was alive we had special sticky wheels as well, and I only remember one team pushing us off cleanly (68)- although I don't remember 222 ever trying to get us off the ramp..

-I'd definitely reccomend these gum rubber wheels for anyone who's looking for mad traction, just be ready to use some kind of drop-down caster system or something to turn...

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

We have used the same wheels Mike used for the last 3 years. I remember when we were one of the few teams in 2002 that used them, and then a bunch more last year, and tons more this year.

Just goes to show you how great they are :)

Cory

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

We use go-kart racing slicks. They we like 9" last year and 12" this year. We got them from Carl's Tires (local) but I imagine you could find them if you look. They are pneumatic, rubber, are wide and have a lot of traction. They work great on carpet, and the plastic surfaces. I've yet to see anyone push us with those wheels on the ground. They are connected to sproket with machined hubs. But downside is in the weight. This year each wheel weighed in at about 6 pounds. That is about 24 pounds of wheels.

BTW, I like the wooden wheels. I've made eduwheels out of foam board and electric tape.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Team 293 usually uses milled alluminum rims that we wrap with rough top conveyor belting that we get from mcmaster. The belt we get is on catalog page 1089. The belt gets lots of traction and has always worked out well for us.

Ben Van Selous

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Yeah we had the same problem two years ago. We ended up using tires twice the size of yours. The problem was fixed using duct tape believe it or not and going to two wheel drive.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

We used the 12" pneumatic wheels from the kit in the front and 8" pnuematics in the back. For the past few years we have used pnuematics and while they provide awesome traction, that is the tradeoff for poor maneuverability. At the beginning of this season we were going to have the same problem again until we went to Quincy. A few teams there had bought what I think is some sort of pool or plumbing tubing. Cutting those in half and tie-wrapping them around the back tires provided us with what you might call cheap and easy omni wheels. The ridges gripped for some decent traction going forward and back and let us slip to the side when turning. For any team who needs a quick fix I recommend going to Home Depot or another home supply store to pick some up. i don't have a picture handy but if I find one I'll put one up.

-Tom

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

See the back left wheel here: http://firstrobotics.net/04Gallery/i...0069-1_jpg.jpg

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

That stuff is really awesome! It's a cheap and viable alternative to building your own omni wheels. The only problem (that we had) is that the tubing had a tendency to slip to one side or the other, and it's kind of a pain to replace, because you have to position the zip ties in such a way that they don't stick out and have sharp edges. It's also kind of hard to cut straight.

But it's still good stuff. :D

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Here is what we (171) have been using the last couple years. They are cheap and effective. The only downfall is they weigh quite a bit.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

for the past...3 years we've (254) gone with custom wheels. before then we used the 6" skyway wheels from the kit. by going with custom milled aluminium wheels we were able to make a lighter/stronger wheel. the last plus is that we can put any kinda tred we want on them. here isa picture of what they evolved to in 04....

just to xplain what u r seeing the wheel is three pieces...

-the center red hub
-the blue webbing (the reason we made the hub and the webbing separate is so that when we need to change a wheel is doesn't mess with the chain tention or anything else, they just pop on n off)
-the silver ring (used to pinch the tred into the groove)

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=Verbose

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...&quiet=Verbose

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Here are the wheels Henry222 is telling you about.

We have been using wheels since day one and that was 8 years ago. For 6 of those years we used those 8'' Skyway wheels. In 2003 we used the wheels shown in the picture with a caster conversion system for 2W/4W drive. In 2004 we used the 12.5'' Pneumatic wheels from Skyway with a ball caster system for 2W/4W drive.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

whats the reason for more teams not using the wheelchair wheels that comes in the kit? That is all our budget really allowed for, so we used them.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

The problem we had with the wheelchair wheels happened at on of our regionals:

The center hub got ripped completely out. Just snapped clean off. It's like we had the wheelchair wheel, but with no center part. As part of the pit crew, I must say that it was quite impressive :D

Hey JoeM, do you have any pics of that?

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

The problems we had with those was turning. At the beginning of the year....we tested out some simular wheels, and we could barely turn on carpet w/out burning our battery out in half a minute, and turning didn't really happen...it was more of a skip/jump thing.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

Notice the tracks on the one on the right (our 2002 bot). They cost about $80 each and weigh 15 pounds each.

Re: Who Likes Wheels?
 

We have access to a CNC mill, and we order some aluminum and cut it up there to make our rims. We then go through and cut up inclined conveyor belt which we order (I believe from McMaster.) We also anodize our rims. We then rivet on the conveyor belt, and create 6 wheels with this design. We end up placing these on our robot, and lowering the 2 middle wheels 1/4 in to allow for much better turning. We can turn on a dime with that set up, while we still have the advantages of 6 wheel drive, and we get very good traction this way.

We do this because it is light, effective, doesn't take too long to do, and it looks really nice. In testing, none of the team members could push our robot (we also had 4 motor drive) and we weren't pushed around in competition - save the one time our battery died.