Re: pic: 2011 Drive Prototype
 

and cause 233 is just plain lazy

Re: pic: 2011 Drive Prototype
 

To all of you pontificating that Marcus copied the design of 254 & 968, I ask who cares? We have a student using Inventor to design a drive base instead of wasting his time playing video games. I see nothing wrong with that.

I find all the recent berating replies to student designed components counter-productive. Shouldn't we be encouraging exploration instead of repeatedly beating it with a stick? Spend some time giving constructive feedback instead.

Re: pic: 2011 Drive Prototype
 

^^ Exactly. I'm sure many chain-drive 6wd designs look a lot like Team 95's robot Archimedes from 1998 which had a dropped-center 6WD. I'm sure many omni-wheel drives look similar to 95's 1999 robot Mac. It's likely that these designs looked an awful lot like ones that came before them.

It's very rare that designs change radically and immediately. Look at the evolution of cars, or bicycles, or...

Re: pic: 2011 Drive Prototype
 

I don't think anyone minded the inspiration from 254 and 233, until he claimed it was an original design. Regardless, you have a perfectly valid point.

Re: pic: 2011 Drive Prototype
 

I don't get the problem here. He's taking the time to design something during the off-season to take a chance and inspire his team to use something they never have before. FIRST is all about teams sharing ideas and collaborating. If there was a team against that theory I'm positive they would not be a part of it. James is right in saying its VERY rare to see anything original anymore.

Copying someone's design is taking their work, piece by piece, and calling it your own. BUT, if you take someone else's design and modify it to accommodate any changes you might like, it becomes an original design. The Car, it has 4 wheels, a power source, steering wheel, and seats. It's been done. Companies design new cars everyday. Same concept. same core pieces, but small parts are modified. They patent that design and call it an original design.

I should be able to say that Krab Drive was designed completely by Team 79. But look through the history of FIRST, it's been done. But what we DID do is take the swerve drive, modify the modules to what we found best, fit the design into a chassis we can work with, and built a robot with it. This became an original design that no one else in the world has. If you can show me another robot that is EXACTLY, piece for piece, the same, I'll take back everything I have said.

Chief Delphi has always been a place where students and mentors can come together and share experiences, share designs, and communicate on how to better their knowledge. Lately I have found it to be filled with harsh critical comments which have nothing to do with the design themselves. It shocks me to know that people have started to use CD as a way to bring people down instead of building them up. It seems that we have forgotten the saying "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all"

With all of that aside, I would like to commend you on such a design. It's very well put together, and I love the idea of having an easy-to-use chain tensioner. This is a very nice building block to many robot designs you could invent in the future. Continue the great work! If you follow through with this kind of design as an off-season test platform, I would love to see how it turns out.

Bryan Gallo