[JVN]

Thanks for the compliments... We really appreciate them.

The original design (wheel on the left) was done this fall as (note my avatar animation). Unfortunately we didn't meet all our design specifications...

I am (along with Eric and 4 others) part of a senior mechanical design team assigned to 229 (as part of our senior integrated design capstone class). One of our design specifications (created mostly as a joke) was: "4 out of 5 high schoolers must agree the robot is 'blingin'." (You can imagine how difficult it is to create a quantitative specification for "bling".)

The original design didn't make the cut, so we had to go back to the drawing board. The wheel on the right is the final result, and the one that will be on the competition robot.

Each wheel involves about 3 hours of CNC time, plus a few hours of "lathe time". (These wheels are cut from a length of 4" aluminum rod.)
(When 179 posted their prebought wheels, I felt like a chump! I guess we "wasted" our effort, but at least the wheels turned out great, and the HSers got some CNC quality time.)

We thought about spinners, and even have a design done... but we're fighting the weight monster this year. Maybe it will happen, probably not.

As far as "JVN is a dweeb"... I hear 229 may be handing out fake tattoos with that very slogan! That and: "Andy Baker is the God of Hick Rock!"

These wheels won't break. We performed FEA on them using Ansys and they're fine.

We've been running on them for 3 days now, and the tread is staying on just fine. We've done the "epoxy thing" before, and it was just a huge hassle. Changing tread now is as easy as 4 drilled holes, and 4 new rivets. (The pit crew keeps whining about "design for maintenance" and such.)

Thanks again for the compliments...
-JV