KOP Drivetrain vs Voucher

[scaryone]

Hopefully not discussed extensively somewhere else:

What is your team deciding on? Drivetrain or Voucher? and why.

[MARS_James]

Voucher, we only ever used the KOP Drivetrain once and have found a custom drive that suits our needs so the voucher just makes more sence

[MichaelBick]

We made a BOM and figured out that you could budget 2 custom shifting gearboxes(without raw materials) and enough sprockets to build an 8wd with the voucher. We will be using the voucher for sure.

[Chris is me]

We've never used the Kitbot, and if we want to, we have plenty already. Voucher for us.

I think if you are at all unsure of what you're doing in the drivetrain department, it's best to play it safe and get a Kitbot you might not need. Kit frame material is very useful for other purposes (appendages, making a cart out of the 2010 kitbot, etc)

[Jon Stratis]

I think we're going with the kitbot... we've used it all but 1 year so far, and we don't really have any drive train plans that would be any better. Having the option though... it's something we'll be looking into for future years!

[Taylor]

KoP.
Even if we don't use the KoP on our chassis, it's good structural material to have - even if for offseason projects.

[Brandon Holley]

We're definitely taking the voucher, but we will miss having the kitbot. We've used it in the past as the "demo unit" for our robot quick build sessions. It's also been a decent drivebase to have around in the first week or so for prototyping/test bed type stuff.

However, that functionality isn't necessary, just more of a nice-to-have, thus voucher.

-Brando

[IndySam]

We will be using the Voucher for sure but I wouldn't recommend that for most teams.

I would suggest that at least 80% of the teams out there should use the KOP or "KOP on steroids" and focus their energy on game play.

[BrendanB]

KOP.

We have never used belts and would like to make the tranistion and we see the new KOP system as a great learning experience for our students and we could implement it into a custom drivetrain. $450 isn't a lot of money to raise to off-set the vouched and we use the kitbot frame as a test chassis a lot!

In future years we may choose the voucher if it is still around we shall see!

[Mk.32]

We are going with the voucher, we prototyped a WCD over the summer and love it. Also if we need it we have enough materials from the last 2 years to build 2/3 kit bots.

[Nuttyman54]

Just a word of warning to those saying "we have old kitbots if we need it", that is fine for prototyping or practice chassis, but may not be competition legal. In the past, the rule has been that a previous kitbot is legal only if it is identical to the current kit version. Since we know for sure that this year's kitbot is significantly different, unless the rules change there is a high probability that previous kitbots will not be FRC2013 legal.

I only point this out in case some teams, especially 2nd year teams, are considering taking the voucher and then relying on a previous kitbot for their chassis or having it as a fall-back option if their custom drive doesn't work.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Just a word of warning to those saying "we have old kitbots if we need it", that is fine for prototyping or practice chassis, but may not be competition legal. In the past, the rule has been that a previous kitbot is legal only if it is identical to the current kit version. Since we know for sure that this year's kitbot is significantly different, unless the rules change there is a high probability that previous kitbots will not be FRC2013 legal.

The old Kitbots are still COTS items. As long as they are unmodified, they would be legal under previous years' rules.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

The old Kitbots are still COTS items. As long as they are unmodified, they would be legal under previous years' rules.

The difference being cost accounting - a previous year's kitbot that is not identical to this year's kitbot would have to be accounted for cost-wise on your BOM. This year's kitbot is "free" on the BOM and doesn't count toward your total cost for the robot.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

The old Kitbots are still COTS items. As long as they are unmodified, they would be legal under previous years' rules.

My mistake, I was thinking of a previous ruling when the kitbots were considered "custom" and were not available as COTS items, meaning they were unusable for future competition seasons.

[Anupam Goli]

I probably have to go back and read the exact post, but our team is probably going to be looking at using the voucher. We haven't used kitbot in a while, and with our off season experiments, we're looking at using 80/20 and going to tubing soon. However, i don't know if the KOP includes the motors, belts, or transmissions. I do want to take a look at these timing belts and not having the motors would be a bad day. If the belting system is good and with the new wheels, this kitbot actually looks really good.