pic: Exploding Bacon's Spamthingamicon! (Octocanum)

[Nick Lawrence]

I dig the IFI control system.

Wonderful job, that's beautiful.

-Nick

[Andrew Remmers]

Originally Posted by RogerR

any relation to the original spamthingacon?

Yes, It was brought up to me by a few mentors who were involved the in the original design process. I figured I'd take the challenge and make one early build season 2010 (of course after build season was when I started cadding)
I had quite a while to doodle around and I found what would be a pretty neat system I thought. It took me a while to get a handle of the tools in Inventor since I had no idea what I was doing! My mentors Dan and Andrew sorta supervised me as I designed it and would give pointers at meetings something like every two weeks. We also designed for use of the old control systems since we had a ton of those just laying around collecting dust, I figured I might as well put them to work! (answering Nick's Comment )

Again thank you for the awesome comments! Maybe I should go redesign it one of these days!

[Madison]

Originally Posted by JVN

That was a lesson 148 learned in 2010. Our 2011 pre-season prototype and our 2011 robot had stationary traction wheels -- MUCH tougher.

-John

I'm in the midst of a long vacation from my team, so I haven't had a chance to look at our robot closely since competition, but I don't recall anything seeming worse for wear as a result of lowering the traction wheels instead of the mecanum wheels. What sorts of failure/problems did y'all experience?

I liked the drive enough that I'm willing to optimize it and see what we can do to make it part of our standard toolbox. I'm interested in reading others' experiences with similar drives.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Madison

I'm in the midst of a long vacation from my team, so I haven't had a chance to look at our robot closely since competition, but I don't recall anything seeming worse for wear as a result of lowering the traction wheels instead of the mecanum wheels. What sorts of failure/problems did y'all experience?

I liked the drive enough that I'm willing to optimize it and see what we can do to make it part of our standard toolbox. I'm interested in reading others' experiences with similar drives.

Have you posted a "review" of this style of drive anywhere? If not would you please consider doing so such that those of us who are considering investing the time in research don't have to start from scratch?

My main questions:

How often did you use the mecanum wheels?
The traction wheels?
How often did you use the omni-directional capabilities?
Do you feel that the added cost (complexity, time, money) was warranted given the benefits? Why?


Sorry for asking you to do all this but I'm genuinely curious how this type of hybrid drive worked out for teams this year.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Have you posted a "review" of this style of drive anywhere? If not would you please consider doing so such that those of us who are considering investing the time in research don't have to start from scratch?

My main questions:

How often did you use the mecanum wheels?
The traction wheels?
How often did you use the omni-directional capabilities?
Do you feel that the added cost (complexity, time, money) was warranted given the benefits? Why?


Sorry for asking you to do all this but I'm genuinely curious how this type of hybrid drive worked out for teams this year.

I have been meaning to post something about our experiences, but haven't had time to really get my thoughts written down and organized.

The short version, which'll have to hold people over for a bit, is, "Holy crap, this is amazing."

[Nathan Pell]

I just love the fact you still used the name "Spamthingacon"

Spam + Swamp Thing + Team Emticons...


Sweet!

[Tytus Gerrish]

sounds familiar.

[Andrew Remmers]

Originally Posted by Nathan Pell

I just love the fact you still used the name "Spamthingacon"

Spam + Swamp Thing + Team Emticons...


Sweet!

I actually for purpose of theming called it the Baconmicon, However I figured CD would pick up on Spamthingamicon a little better so thats what I posted it as!

[dudefise]

amazing... nice work!