treads: useful or not?
 

Are treads legal on the robot? and in your opinion are they worth the challenge of finding the right type?

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

legal? yes (assuming you follow the rules for what contacts the carpet)

Useful? no. Unless you find or make just the right thing, most treads are either too heavy, too inefficient, make it too hard to turn, or have too many moving parts.

It is possible to design treads that balance these considerations, but I don't think treads are needed in general this year.

I /do/ predict that 5% of the robot population will have them.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Legal? Yes.

Worth the challenge? Not having played with them at all, I couldn't say. That's something for your team to determine.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

I would heavily disagree with most assertions in this post.

Yes, tracks are legal. Yes, they are useful. They allow unparalleled climbing ability, and traction that no other system can offer. They are easy to turn, assuming proper design work is done. In addition, a proper tread system will have less moving parts than a six wheel, or even a four wheel.

I would recommend looking up Outback Tracks for inspiration, and please research the problem fully before discarding an idea based on one CD member's post.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Tracks are hard to turn with only when poorly designed (If you wanna turn on a dime, might i suggest a halftrack with omniwheels at the back??? :D).

If you want to know more, I would suggest trying to contact FRC 1075, they have built a strong track drive for a few years (minus 09), and I am almost willing to put money on it that they will again this year.

Are they worth the time, money, and challenge though? This is a question only you are in a position to determine, based on your teams needs and equipment.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

I wouldn't say unparalleled.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

True. Absolute statements always get me in trouble. The only systems that could out climb a properly designed track system are most likely above the price point of most FRC teams.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

I don't believe that treads are illegal at all. There are no rules this year that tell you you MUST use a certain type of wheels/way to get traction.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Legal yeah, and useful..no doubt, though you HAVE TO MAKE THEM RIGHT!! We have an engineer who showed us springloaded front wheel shaft and a back friction drive wheel, allows awsome manuverability.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

I would once again disagree. I would say many teams this year will build nontracked drives that are cheaper to produce, and equally effective at traversing the bumps.

Don't get me wrong treads can climb well, but to say they are the best end all be all is untrue.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

They are extremley useful for the robot who is to big to go under the tunnel it provides an easy way to climb the CARPETED bumps :) :) :)

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

I'm going to back Craig on this since my team is going with treads also.

After looking for a while at many wheel designs the biggest thing I liked about treads over stand wheel layouts like the kit bot was the fact that they needed a lot less ground clearance = lower COG = less tipping chance, plus a multitude of other reasons that Craig already covered.

Outback is also really amazing to work with and really helpful, the treads that come out of there are awesome

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

We are using tracks this year, our first test of them will commence monday.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Team 383 used treads from 2001 to 2007.

Team 383 has a lot of experience building robots with treads.

Team 383 cannot use that experience to perfect a tread system.

Team 383 has lost at least two matches in every season it used treads because the robot cannot move when the treads fall off - and they will fall off.

Team 383 will not be using treads anytime soon.


Build your robot as you wish, but I strongly recommend that you build it on wheels, whatever flavor (omni, mecanum, sticky, slippy...) pleases you.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Do you have any more info? who made the trades? to what tolerances were they made? Under what conditions did they fall off?

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

woah, woah, woah...... Treads...grove cut to fit between 2 wheels track has a grove which is IMPOSSIBLE to come off....problem solved
http://s810.photobucket.com/albums/z...86 4_3076.jpg

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

higher res please?

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Well we are trying a tensioner system and i belive the tensioner will hold the belt in place no matter how rough we play.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

For some reason I think that treads aren't so useful for this years game. They're heavy, takes up (a lot of) space on the robot, and to go over the bump you'll need to pass over the center point for climbing down (if your top heavy your going to end up bouncing around and possibly losing the treads in the process<this applies for going onto the bump as well>). The one thing I have repeatedly learned is that a tipped robot, and a robot with out chains/treads in place, leads to a very frustrating match where you end up not moving to your own major disappointment.:(

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

The key to how useful treads are is how well they are designed. A well designed tread system can actually weight less and occupy less space than most 8/6 wheel drive robots. They are not cheap if you want to do it right.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

Exactly, I played with the tread system made by Outback manufacturing(outbackmfg.com) today and it was insanely light. The treads they use are LIGHT and the actual tread material doesn't stretch. I haven't felt a full on wheeled module weight, but I imagine if anything it's not much less if not heavier. The weight of the chain alone is extremely heavy. I wouldn't doubt a tread would be lighter.

Re: treads: useful or not?
 

You who have no faith here's my point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Bm9DCr6Yo
real and working WELL