[Gary Bonner]

We used the 6” aluminum wheels last year without much luck. On the 6” wheel, the rollers are spaced angularly too far apart. The robot bounces up and down as the wheel turns and alternately rides up onto a single roller and then down onto two adjacent rollers. The 8” wheel has more rollers, but I don’t know if it rides any more smoothly. I believe some teams put two wheels together and staggered the rollers to address this, but that doubles the weight of your wheel.

The other issue we had was with the rollers themselves. The acetal rollers rolled freely, put provided very little forward traction. The EPDM rollers had very good forward traction, but the roller would flex and wedge in its slot, which would prevent it from rolling. The neoprene rollers weren’t available when we ordered last year, so I don’t know how they will perform.

Although I’ve only seen the molded plastic wheel picture on the website, it looks to me to be much better. They have more and wider rollers, and the rounder wheel profile should turn more freely. I don’t know how freely the rollers turn, but it doesn’t look like their flexing would be a problem.