Quote:
Originally Posted by dantheflipman
yeah those numbers are just about right 
our gyro actually did have a considerable effect on driving the robot, when being chased by another bot we were able to literally flip a 180 degree turn and then keep driving backwards with ease, it really did help a ton with defensive driving. demonstrating that thing in the pits was fun, it's so loud that every time you turn it on it get's quite a bit of attention 
too bad the motor that tilts it broke right before the last match in the finals at San Diego, with it our alliance would have had a greater chance at winning.. (that was the closest our team has gotten to winning in our 6 years ^_^ so i'm still stoked at how well we did.) |
I would love to see some photos of it- perhaps even a video when/if you get it repaired.
We took a physics bicycle wheel demo and, calculating it's mass (heavily weighted welded iron) we estimated that at 3000 RPM we would exceed the tractive force of the wheels by 10x.
That roughly worked out to be able to flip the robot around in turning - in fact, it would flip around up to three robots. Of course 'spinning' the wheels to reduce friction would make it easier.
Sadly it was never built or further conceptualized. It may never be. But I still would love to see yours.
-For those that are asking or mention mems gyros, I'm talking about gyroscopic precession. I want the gyro to *turn* the robot- not to measure the turn. That means huge, massive spinning disks...