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That is a NICE tank drive. Great job and welcome to FIRST!

I see you're from MA, but I didn't see you on the Boston Regional list. What regional are you attending and are you going to the Championship? I'd love to see this in person.

Edit: Found it on the web...next obvious choice was CT. Best of luck, it really looks great!

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wow, great looking tank! who's your belt maker? Also, is that the finished bot?

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Done any testing to see how durable the tread belt is? I'm particularly thinking when your robot is pushed sideways.

Looks pretty schweet!

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Haven't really done much testing - we are hoping to be the "Pusher", not the "Pushee". The treads are Brecoflex 4"x80". "Finished" is a relative :) term. At this point we still have to change sprockets to go faster, improve the chain tensioners, stuff in 4 more motors, mount the ramp, and lose 18 pounds :(. It was nice to have it driving around the school for the first time today.

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8 drive train motors?

This year we're going to see some serious pushing action going on with 100 pound robots and drivetrains as beastly as we've seen.

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i am scared! :ahh: indeed, i love to see all diffrent ideas of drives, it's the best.

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Why did you opt to put not only 8 motors, but the 8 most powerful motors available, into the drive-train? Yeah, everyone likes powerful drives, but that's next to ridiculous! Especially considering traction is often the bigger advantage than pure power in many pushing matches. :ahh:
Are you going to have any scoring mechanisms or robot raising mechanisms?

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Nice job guys. One question though - how much of that tread is actually in contact with the carpet?? Do you have an offset center so that only half the track or less is in contact with the carpet at any given time? With 4" treads, be wary of friction while turning. A few years ago, 1064 went with 3" belts and wanted to do 4 tracks that could pivot and "stand up" so it could turn. Didn't work so well though...but I hope you guys have much success.

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They have a pneumatic in the front to help turn. My old team, 573, did this in 2003. Except we had about 44in of tread to floor contact. It worked great and turning was never a problem.

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How long do your batteries last with that setup?

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Tanks are impressive from any team.

8 drive motors are impressive for any team.

For a rookie team... that is simply amazing. What regionals are you going to?

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My goodness, 4" belts and an 8 motor drivetrain, you guys obviously wanna make a statement in your rookie year. That is very very impressive for a rookie team, excellent job guys

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We don't know - we have about 30 minutes of driving on one battery.

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I'm thinking they subscribe to the thought that "the best offense is a good defense". They are from New England, after all. :D

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Sad to see that beast won't be in Boston like us. Isn't there a rule against using >4 CIMs, though? I will watch the online coverage of CT just to see thisbeast smash some heads.
I wasn't expecting defense to be a good strategy this year, but if there are beasts like this thing out there I may have to re-evaluate that assumption.

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what a monster
im pretty sure that could eat our robots omni-drive for breakfast

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tank controls seem to take too much time to turn when in compition, but your set-up seems to work...

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A suggestion: Cut the metal plates on either side of the drivetrain to allow other robots to drive on top of your treads. Worth 15 points, eh?

Edit: And lexan over your electricals, too.

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We've got some panels that deploy, with a 10-degree ramp to allow 2 robots on top of us. Haven't quite gotten them deploying reliably yet, the first attempt with springs kind of tore itself apart. There is a lexan window over the controller, and the rest of the ramp structure is aluminum honeycomb.

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were still working on our ramp right now... we are behind by at least a week.

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Yes, but they said they are using 8 motors, not 8 2.5" CIM motors. They are using 4 2.5" CIM motors, 2 CIM "Mini-bike" motors, and 2 Fischer Price motors.

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yes we never said 8 CIM, but the motors is not our top priority right now, a lot to get done, and since overweight(the beast is very heavy) we are thinking of not putting any more motors. But we ll see if we have any pounds we ll put more motors in.

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Oh my goodness I am such a noobie. I cant figure out how to create a whole new thread or blog. I would like to start a new topic...can someone help me (the loser who cant post) out. haha

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Click on "Chief Delphi" all the way at the top of the page. Then click on the name of a forum area you want to post in, and then choose the "New Thread" button.