Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence
Remember the VersaChassis isn't a perfectly functioning west coast drive in a box shipped to your front door already assembled ready to drive out of the box, or a kit with parts you put together from an instruction booklet. It's still a custom drivetrain. You design the dimensions. You choose where the holes are made and you drill them. You machine most everything and put it all together. The Versachassis components are in no way different from regular custom WCD components. The aluminum tubing is aluminum tubing. The bearing blocks are bearing blocks. The transmission is a transmission. The gussets are gussets. The difference is these parts are strategically designed to involve minimal required machinework to have a functional drive, and provide a lot more tolerance to mistakes. I think in an offseason drivetrain where your goal is to learn and test ideas, the added tolerance, the minimal required machining, and the seamless integration of allowable iteration is not only a great asset, but an achievable goal that those building their first west coast drives should strive for.
The drive enables low resource teams to build a competitive drivetrain, and high resource teams to spend less time on their drive system so they can focus on their scoring mechanismms. It allows teams doing their first west coast drive to iterate with a large tolerance window, and for the teams making their tenth west coast drive, it offers a simple, reliable system that is functionally equivalent to what is already used in west coast drives, readily available as a COTS resource.
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I totally agree with your reasons, but IMO it's a better experience to design a chassis and use as many stock vex parts like bearings blocks than to just order all the parts and bolt it together. Designing 2x1 was a (cough) memorable (cough) experience for myself.
I guess it depends on what the OP feels is "too stock" and what is not. Personal experience says to design for modularity (have different gearbox mounting hole patterns) and use stock parts (like vex bearing blocks) without sacrificing learning (make your own WCD 2x1 with slots).