[Brandon Holley]

The NUTRONs went with an 8WD this year. 5" Colson Performa wheels, 1.5" width. The main reason for going 8WD was the same as 2168's, which is to traverse the barrier without any active mechanism.

One unique thing about the drive system was that the wheels along a drive side were NOT of equal spacing. Looking at our drive side with the front being labeled as wheel 1 and the back being labeled as wheel 4; wheel 1 and wheel 2 were quite close, wheel 3 and wheel 4 were not quite as close as wheel 1 and 2, and wheels 2 and 3 were the furthest apart.

We did this because it helped to offset one of the disadvantages of an 8WD in this game, which I believe is what John is referring to. We wanted to try and get a wheel as close to the center as we could so that we could hang as much of the robot off the back as possible. We still need 6 wheels on the bridge to hang, but those 6 wheels + front bumper only require 26" of ramp space.

The entire drive system had 0.5" of ground clearance, and all of the areas that came into contact with the barrier were either wheels or delrin slides. We developed a pretty cool cutout (relief) in our sideplates that made it impossible for us to become high centered on the barrier. This was because as the robot's weight transferred over the barrier, the robot rode on an arc instead of a flat. This guaranteed that the robot could never stop on top of the barrier. You can see those cutouts in this picture:



-Brando