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Unread 03-02-2005, 15:32
hacksaw692 hacksaw692 is offline
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AKA: Sherry Batin
FRC #0692 (The Fembots)
Team Role: Coach
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Rookie Year: 2002
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 133
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Re: Enough buying talk. Let's hear about ghettofab!

Oh dear... This thread has most definitly been hiding from me.

2002. My rookie year.
We attempted a 4 wheel chain driven trannie. What's interesting is that we didn't bother using any pillow blocks to hold down our shafts. Instead we hand fabricated (hacksaw and drill baby) little 1" x 4" strips of metal that were bent over the ends of the wheel shafts and bolted directly onto the chasis. This provided for slack in our chain and really bad alignment. To make up for the slack we placed a thick piece of rounded off, I think it was some kind of polycarbonate plastic, directly against the chain as a tensioner.

Something like this would be able to be driven around rather gently on tile or contrete. But of course this was a robotics competition. Instead of tile, there was carpet and instead of gentle driving... well yeah 2 minutes and what are you going to do with a robot? So the chain would just pop right off it's sprocket and we'd be sitting ducks.

I'm still wondering why we bothered to build it that way (hmm maybe it was a weight issue), but what did I know? I was a rookie at the time. Unfortunately, this is the sole reason why 692 likes to avoid chain drives.

Minor gehettofabulousness: 2003. Robot's team numbers were shaped out of electrical tape and attached on with (colored!) zip ties.
__________________
2002 - Team 692, Robot Driver/Historian
2003 - Team 692, President/Pit Leader/Lead Mechanic/Robot Driver
2004 - Sitting on the Sidelines...
2005 - Sac Robot Inspector
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[as much as you may not believe it, Real Life can get in the way of FIRST]
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2009 - Team 692, Alumni Mentor/Drive Team Coach

Cal Poly, BS Mechanical Engineering, 2008
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