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Unread 01-08-2014, 16:13
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Adam Freeman Adam Freeman is offline
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FRC #0148 (Robowranglers)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
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Location: Rockwall, TX
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Re: paper: 2014 HOT Tech Notes

Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnFogarty View Post
I've been analysing a lot of drive train design this summer and I've been meaning to ask since watching this year's Einstein matches. Where It seemed your drive had the worst time in escaping t-bone pins. Do you think there is a simple method to improving an 8WD to escape t-bone pins so that the power and robustness of the drive can be maintained.

The drop-down wheels that have begun popping up on various team's drives offers an interesting solution, but I'd just like to hear what you think.
I agree with your assesment... I think we were extremely bad at getting out of t-bone pins.

I'm not sure there is a simple solution to the problem. I don't think the issue was only b/c of the 8WD drivetrain setup. I think that the combination of the 8WD, long chassis, rectangular chassis shape, and driver ability all resulted in us getting stuck in a lot of t-bones.

Drop down omnis are becoming more and more common. We entertained adding breifly them during the season (after MSC), but never really pursued it to far. It would have require quite a bit of designing and changes that would have only resulted in marginal gains at Champs.

We actually started running different combination of omni wheels in the offseason that helped a little bit, but we still had issues with pins.

As Glen mentioned, we will probably evaluate different chassis shapes to help lower the chances of a full on side pin. I think it will be a point of focus for our chassis design next season.

I don't think we are ready to add in drop down wheels to our drive system. Teams like 469 and 254 did pretty well without them on a standard 6/8WD setup. I'd like to see more of a square chassis setup next year and some better driving to avoid defense. We haven't entertained switching to 6WD much in the past couple years, but it might be something to look into next year.
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