Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperNerd256
Sorry if I came off the wrong way, but I mean to say that even though tank drive is tank drive, and it's all the same old song and dance, building the kitbot on steroids is generally a smarter decision for most teams because it provides the same benefits a normal tank drive chassis does (and all of the ones you posted), and it has something none of them do - You can build it in a day. That's the big hitter right here. Custom chassis can take a week or more to be sent off, machined, brought back, and put together. And I know you know that time is something very valuable in the FRC 6 week build season. The goal of a drivetrain/chassis is to be strong, efficient, and to effectively move the robot from point A to point B. The way you score is via your manipulator (Why am I saying this? You know it already.). I'd rather spend 6 weeks working on perfecting a manipulator that is better than everyone else's than spending a whole week or more making a chassis that does the same thing everyone else's does.
Tl;dr - You save lots of time by going KBoS instead of a custom chassis design, both drivetrains do the same thing, and both are equally as effective.
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Well, I understand your concern and what you're saying.
However, the way our team is structured and the way we plan to approach this, I don't think it would be an issue.
We're basically going to build our chassis out of extrusion as we did last year, starting on day 1, and then begin prototyping, testing, etc, with that chassis. We're not going to lose any time waiting for a custom chassis to come in. We will, however, try to make this quick extrusion chassis similar to what we plan to design in terms of, say, the dimensions of the opening, placement of manipulator, space for controls and electronics, etc.
Then, while most of mech team is working on that chassis and approaching the challenge, manipulators, collectors, etc, our design team will be CADing up our custom chassis, which, as mentioned, should be similar in dimension, purpose, and usability as the test chassis we're using.
That way, if we get that chassis machined, there's little headway in terms of moving from our test chassis to the custom one - it should be similar enough that we need to make just minor adjustments to our designs to have them ready to put on it. Furthermore, we'll have in our minds the entire testing time that we are having a custom chassis on the way and we need to plan ahead for it.
Basically, the building of a custom chassis shouldn't really detract from our efforts in terms of building, say, the perfect manipulator, like you say.