Wheel Size?

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by the man

Did some one say segway bot?

Yeah, there was a segway bot sketch made by one of the younger mentors during the kickoff....

Of course the discussion deteriorated to a unicycle robot.

There should be no limit to the size of wheels you can use besides the 38" limit, but think about how tippy the robot would be with larger wheels.

[I LOVE ROBOTS!]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I don't want to rain on your parade, but they couldn't possibly be any larger than 36 inches in diameter if you plan on building a 28x38 inch frame around them.

someone forgot about putting the wheels in diagonal. so find the hypotenuse, then that's accurate.

[the man]

44.407in with a frame made of 1in on a side.

[Ninja_Bait]

Originally Posted by I LOVE ROBOTS!

someone forgot about putting the wheels in diagonal. so find the hypotenuse, then that's accurate.

We have successfully gone from the realm of intelligent engineering to the realm of infeasible, useless number mashing.

[the man]

Oh come on now. Impractical at worst.

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

I remember seeing an old 2004 clip on youtube with a bot that used them to climb the stairs...

That was 1218 The ChaBots. They made it all the way to the Einstein Final that year. They were pretty hard to stop, even if you dropped a robot on them.

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by the man

44.407in with a frame made of 1in on a side.

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I don't want to rain on your parade, but they couldn't possibly be any larger than 36 inches in diameter if you plan on building a 28x38 inch frame around them.

The frame perimeter would be at ~2-10 inches. the largest part of the wheel will be at .5*wheel diameter. In other words, the frame itself has no effect on your maximum wheel size, the vertical projection of your frame perimeter is the limiting factor. that means that a wheel with a tapered tread (allowing it to extend into the corners of the frame perimeter) could be up to 47.2 inches in diameter if it were placed on a diagonal, despite the ridiculousness of such a configuration. Assuming a frame 10 inches off the ground, the wheel, at frame level would measure only 29.1 inches. by lowering the frame to 2 inches from the ground, that number drops to 13.6 inches.

In a far more conventional long setup. 38" wheels would measure only 25.7 inches at a height of ten inches and 12.2 inches at a height of two inches.

Originally Posted by Ninja_Bait

We have successfully gone from the realm of intelligent engineering to the realm of infeasible, useless number mashing.

If engineers can't say what if, then the world would be a much more boring place. That being said, once wheel diameter gets a little higher than ten inches, making them any bigger would yield a negligible advantage. And that is ignoring the added weight of the larger wheels and the extra gearing needed to bring the motors back into an operating envelope which the electrical system can cope with (without browning out every time you try to turn).

[the man]

Slightly irrelevant, but I remember a team that had a large gear dropped on their robot during shipping. That would suck.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

That was 1218 The ChaBots. They made it all the way to the Einstein Final that year. They were pretty hard to stop, even if you dropped a robot on them.

340 also had them on Einstein in 2004.

[Cem8301]

Originally Posted by Apeace

I just noticed that the rule book has no mention of the wheel size constraints. Any thoughts?

Wheel size constrains how easy it is for your robot to turn. I was a little surprised, but with these wheels on our off-season robot we could do nothing but move backwards and forwards on tile/ carpet.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Cem8301

Wheel size constrains how easy it is for your robot to turn. I was a little surprised, but with these wheels on our off-season robot we could do nothing but move backwards and forwards on tile/ carpet.

It's not the size of the wheels, it's the layout....they are spaced far apart front-back, not far apart side-side, and they have good traction.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

That was 1218 The ChaBots. They made it all the way to the Einstein Final that year. They were pretty hard to stop, even if you dropped a robot on them.

that wasn't it.

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

340 also had them on Einstein in 2004.

maybe.

IIRC the clip was from a regional, may have been a qualification...

[scree0114]

would omni wheels be better than the wheels they give you in the kit?

[Apeace]

I think it all depends on how you lay them out. You could do a skid drive, which is where you have 6 wheels, and the center two are the KOP wheels while the outer four are omni wheels. That way, you could spin on a dime.