The Orchard Park Patriots are a new rookie team starting for the 2007 FRC season. We’ve been helping them get started for the better part of a year. Our Canada’s Wonderland Off-season event allowed them to experience a FIRST event, without all the pressure of a regional. The competed under with the team number 2000, but this was just a number we gave them to show the other teams competing that they were in fact pre-rookies. They will receive a different number once they officially register.
The robot was build by 1114 for two reasons. 1) to test out the SPAM inspired half-track drivetrain and 2) to give Orchard Park a simple and robust robot to compete with at Wonderland.
Following the 2006 FRC season, it was obvious that while our tank tread drive base was effective, it still had the enormous weakness of breaking treads. Between the Triplets, 195, and 48, I think around 45 break-o-flex, err, brecoflex belts were broken. After GLR, the addition of slider beds and flanged idlers greatly improved this weakness, but the slider beds introduced large amount of friction to the system, totally killing our drive base efficiency. We also made the switch to Gates-Mectrol belts through our local supplier
Connect Conveyer. We found these to be considerable stronger than the Breco’s.
The principle behind the half-track was simple… reduce the unsupported distance between the pulleys, and add an extra degree of redundancy to the system. By eliminating the need for slider beds, we were also able to get the efficiency back up to an acceptable level.
In this aspect, the half-track was a success. So far, through testing and two FIRST competitions, it hasn’t broken a single belt. We also found that turning performance was significantly decreased by the half-track design over the traditional single belt design. I believe it has to the increased contact further away from the center of mass. Turning was greatly improved by increasing the drop between the center and outside pulleys. Initially, it was 3/16”, but increased to 5/16” after testing. Turning was also improved by switching to a harder urethane rough top belt backing from the original gum rubber rough top backing.
The overall robot design was largely inspired by 1305’s 2006 robot. As one of the best dumper/defense robots last season, it was the logical choice.