Quote:
Originally Posted by dmaciel10123
The side plate for the main body module is made of 1/4 inch aluminum to allow for a 1/8 inch counter-bore for the bolt heads to begin to rest in, minimizing the size requirement for the spacer in between the modules.
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I see. When I saw your exploded picture I didn't notice the two plates separating from each other. I was mistaken, this is similar to what we ran this year but you guys are taking it to another level.
Part of me is curious if you are gaining much in terms of weight you are "spending" on the additional plates/parts to easily remove a module compared to how much that actually pays off. Modular designs are awesome! When we've done them they work out amazing. When we overlook one it usually comes back to bite us. This year we had both sides. Right before the UNH eliminations we noticed our extremely hard to access shooter gearbox was coming loose and it was impossible to access those two bolts with it on the robot. With just a few minutes before our alliance went on the field our pit crew threw a small bracket to hold it in place to survive the rest of the tournament. Before Northeastern we removed the gearbox, addressed the underlying issue of why the gearbox was coming loose, and then changed the bolts for ones we could access while on the robot.
Overall, I would focus on what have been the fail points in your drivebases in the past and work to on designing using reliable mechanisms and then consider how you would make it easy to access/take apart. When it comes to your drivebase you usually have to consider this on a part by part basis and the reason being is that most of your superstructure is mounting to that base. As a standalone robot, our drivebase modules come off as a whole like yours with 8 bolts. Once we add in everything else that we use to accomplish the game it turns into a lot of bolts and a lot of time to remove a module. Instead we focused on the individual parts to get them out of a completed robot faster.
This was the first year we really stepped back to look at our few successes at making good and bad drivebases to build one that didn't need maintenance and if it did we could easily remove any part.