Seeing as nobody else posted this...
I just wanted to hear what people used for their drive trains including:
-Team #? 269
-# of years of participation? 4
-# and type of motors? 2 CIM
-# and type of drive wheels? 2 Drive wheels (8" I believe)
-# and type of non-drive wheels? 2 Non-drive steering wheels (6")
-Transfer system(chains, belts, etc.)? Direct Drive gears
-Transmission (not including supplied ones)? No transmission. We did have a differential for steering (allows one wheel to move faster than the other), but was removed due to problems.
-Steering? We had
Ackerman steering which allowed us to get to the ramp in 5 seconds consistently.
-Sensors? None
-Success? Seed 6th in Curie.
-Problems? Differential had problems with parts breaking, so we used a different drive system. It still worked, but didn't have the same high-traction drive wheels.
-Next year? Dunno.
Other than team 16, I don't think any other teams utilized a true Ackerman steering system. Correct me if I am wrong. I am not referring to casters. Ackerman steering is where the front wheels do the turning fully (usually unpowered, but they are powered by a front differential in AWD cars). The rear wheels are both set to go either full forward or full reverse.
If you want a really good demonstration, check out
Curie Match 65 or
Curie Match 115. Credit to
Soap108.com. If we had higher traction wheels we could cut our time down because the robot actually goes through some acceleration-limiting code when the robot starts up (we were spinning wheels).