Alrighty,
Adam and I were talking about these and I left out some very important details. First of all these wheels aren't designed to on a FRC bot due to the amount of run time they require. They aren't effecient. The reason for some of my crazy CAD is not to make, about 80 percent of it, is to inspire some of the members on my team.
Our team consists of 40 members, a few of them know how to do most if not all of the aspects of robotics by themselves. But this year we have a big bunch of kids that do not know what to, or what is the point of this program and Akash can tell you they don't understand FIRST History. We usually have a half and half mix. This year we have the extremes.
So showing them off the power of CAD and machining stuff for them seems to get them more motivated to DO something on their own. So far we even got funding from the district to start a summer program that is available to any team within 30 miles and is aimed at getting our members more involved.
Plus, a lot of the CAD I do is for experiments, at my work all I have to do are three CAD drawings and then I can go use the CNC mill and lathe. This wheel was made to show others what is possible. I have learned throughout my time in FIRST and CD that it doesn't matter how pretty something is, it doesn't matter. Function over Form is the big thing. If you bot or mechanism doesn't function good, what is the point of it looking pretty.
Just like Art, we used a similar 3 spoke design that used .25 thick 5.5 inch AL shooter wheels. That only used a 1/4 inch endmill and they only took 10 minutes on the CNC (less cause i got lazy clamping them). Then we wedgetop tread and used the al ends to support our whole shooter:
http://team1323.com/pictures/shooter%20wheel.jpg
http://team1323.com/gallery2/09/UC%2...218_large.html
Thanks CD for all the lessons I have been taught,
RC
P.s. Adam, thanks for that first post telling me i was doing stupid stuff a year or two ago..