AndyMark HiGrip Wheels

[BrendanB]

Now that AndyMark has introduced a new 4in HiGrip wheel in addition to their 6in HiGrip wheel introduced in this year's KOP, what experience did your team have this season while using the 6in wheel? Is the grip still the same as it was back in January? How would you compare it to a treaded wheel? Any other thoughts or comments?

Thank you to AndyMark for introducing this wheel! It appears to be a very solid design at a great price! Looking forward to using this in a design hopefully!

[Jon Stratis]

We've never used a tread wheel - All KoP wheels, Omni wheels, and Mecanum wheels for us. We found the new wheel in the KoP this past year worked great. It held up at least as well as the old KoP wheels, and could climb the bridge without issue (still does at off season events!)

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Now that AndyMark has introduced a new 4in HiGrip wheel in addition to their 6in HiGrip wheel introduced in this year's KOP, what experience did your team have this season while using the 6in wheel? Is the grip still the same as it was back in January? How would you compare it to a treaded wheel? Any other thoughts or comments?

Thank you to AndyMark for introducing this wheel! It appears to be a very solid design at a great price! Looking forward to using this in a design hopefully!

We used the 6in and didn't have any issues with losing tread or grip. The tread normally has to be replaced at least once a season. On these we didn't need to replace either of the grip wheels we used.

[topgun]

Would this be the equivalent of a Colson wheel in performance (Cof, wear)?

[IndySam]

Absolutely loved last years KOP wheels. Our practice bot has many seasons worth of time on them and they still work great.

[Billfred]

We used them on our 6WD through Peachtree, Palmetto, Championship, and SCRIW. First time my teams hadn't wedgetopped them (Lunacy aside) since 2007.

Would totally do it again.

[3747Mentor]

I'll agree with the positive reviews here. We loved these wheels!

We used them on our 6WD through two regional competitions, Championships, and a summer full of off-roading/demos/asphalt driving. They are still looking great and climb the bridge with ease!

[DampRobot]

My main concern with using these would be their CoF. I really have a hard time believing that they can be just as grippy as roughtop tread, especially on carpet. It just seems like both the geometry (small squares compared to a velcro like arrangement) and the material (fairly "slidey" plastic versus "sticky" rubber) won't allow these wheels to live up to their name.

Also, I wonder if these would experience stress or fatigue failures. It seems like this thread disproves this problem, but I have heard of placation wheels (which seem to use a similar design) experiencing this type of failure.

[cbale2000]

My only experience was with another team I helped out this year, their robot used the KoP wheels and we discovered that they were actually what made their robot so poor at turning (too much grip).

So for overall grippieness, they're fine, but for a wide-chassis skid-steer robot, not so great for maneuvering.

[RRLedford]

We had a narrow 6-wheeled KOP setup tank bot designed to hang most of its width off the side of the bridge so that long bots could drive past us as we balanced. We had a plastic groove on our underside that engaged with the side rail to keep us aligned with the bridge rail, but without gripping it.

So going up the bridge, we only had three remaining wheels still on the bridge to get us up, and, since the center wheel was slightly lower, only two if these three would be touching the bridge at any one time. We did have most of our mass severely side shifted to keep it above the bridge, and had extra ballast there too, to make this work fotr traction, but despite the shifted weight over the two touching wheels, the 2012 KOP treaded wheels stilldid not have enough traction. We were spinning wheels like crazy just to barely make it up the bridge.

We then bought some older, close out Andy Mark wheels (from 2008 I believe), which had no tread and seemed to be a fairly soft gray urethane material.

We placed two of these wheels on the front and middle of the side that pulled us up the bridge. Traction improved significantly. We left the treaded KOP 2012 wheel on the rear, and took advantage of the tread notches to make a brake from a long piece of light angle aluminum as a pivot bar with a 180 servo at the long end and a horizontal through bolt whose tip stuck into the tread notch when servo activated.

Having a brake was critical for us mastering the 3 bot bridge balance, which we accomplished three out of the only four times we ever attempted it.
Unfortunately, those successes were only in the pit practice area, prior to quarter finals, and our partners ended up too nervous to attempt the triple bot balance in actual competition. The Midwest regional ended up with no alliance ever doing a triple balance, so our successful three in the practice area (<30 seconds too) were the only ones a few people at least got to see. The brake grabbing the tread notch was a fantastic idea, easily implemented, and our three bot balances would have been impossible without it.

-Dick Ledford

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

My main concern with using these would be their CoF. I really have a hard time believing that they can be just as grippy as roughtop tread, especially on carpet. It just seems like both the geometry (small squares compared to a velcro like arrangement) and the material (fairly "slidey" plastic versus "sticky" rubber) won't allow these wheels to live up to their name.

Also, I wonder if these would experience stress or fatigue failures. It seems like this thread disproves this problem, but I have heard of placation wheels (which seem to use a similar design) experiencing this type of failure.

Wana get into a pushing match? The tread is not slidey plastic but very sticky rubber.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

My only experience was with another team I helped out this year, their robot used the KoP wheels and we discovered that they were actually what made their robot so poor at turning (too much grip).

So for overall grippieness, they're fine, but for a wide-chassis skid-steer robot, not so great for maneuvering.

I don't see how they could be any worse than the wedgetop/roughtop, especially on carpet. I think that if designed properly, the maneuverability ought not be an issue.

I think that if the game calls for any portion of the surface that isn't carpet, then my team will be going with these kind of wheels.

- Sunny G.