yeah right.

[soezgg]

the speed factor is going to be alot like last year

last year was most definitely a speed/power game.

yet few teams really opted for a crazy fast robot.


some teams, claiming to have up to 20 fps (you know who im talking about) for some reason never went more than 8-9 fps.

hah.

duh? yeah duh.

[Frank(Aflak)]

Our 'no load' speed this year gives us about 7.8 meters per second. Reducing that to 7, to account for efficiency, or lack thereof, and then maybe say 6.5 just to not overrate ourselves, we should have about 20 feet per second.

We are definatly going speed. At 6.5 meters per second you can jump the ramp, like, go up on side and not touch ground till the carpet on the other. We wanted to shoot for cool with that, although it forced us to rethink our chassis design so it can take a landing.

It will look really cool when we have our 'wings' extended, they just increase puching area, but they look like forward swept wings.

All we gotta get now is to get our sprockets, chain, and pillow blocks, and wait on the 80/20 people for our frame.

Weeee, I can't wait.

We aren't going to be a puching team, definatly, we are expecting only around 600 N of thrust.

[Yan Wang]

(seeing as how you clicked New Thread instead of Reply... )

It's highly unlikely that a team that's incredibly fast or strong can perform very well in this year's game. For stackers who can consistently stack as well as 121's robot could get balls, then it's not important if the top spee is 6feet/sec. I think that the game can be won this year at a slower speed than last year's yet faster speed is required during autonomous mode.

[Jnadke]

What about speed up the ramp? People freely give out erroneous speed values, but are they taking into account current constraints and torque constraints? You are propelling a 130lb bot up a 14* incline. That's 308 Newtons of force over a distance of approximately 2.5 meters.


Sure, momentum might be able to propel you up the ramp, but what about if you encounter problems?

[Frank(Aflak)]

I dunno, a real fast robot in skilled hands can (we hope) compete with some fancier robots.

I mean, we lack resources to build a stacking mechanism, so we had to go pusher.

To spice things up and give us an edge over the other rookie teams in the area (all but two of them are rookies, as i recall) we are doing four motor four wheel drive, with a really large pushing surface. We will probably not be able to outpush other veteran team's robots, but we hope to be able to outmanuever them. You can't save your stack if we can get past you.

Also, 130 lbs going 7 m/s is lots of momentum. If we hit you full speed we can probably move you quite a bit . . . .

We are building our frame stand severe shocks - what if we hit the rap at full speed? *CRUNCH*

(edit - we have enough push to accelerate up the ramp at a decent rate)

[Cory]

Originally posted by Frank(Aflak)
We will probably not be able to outpush other veteran team's robots, but we hope to be able to outmanuever them. You can't save your stack if we can get past you.

Also, 130 lbs going 7 m/s is lots of momentum. If we hit you full speed we can probably move you quite a bit . . . .

We are building our frame stand severe shocks - what if we hit the rap at full speed? *CRUNCH*

(edit - we have enough push to accelerate up the ramp at a decent rate)

Dude: i dont mean to diss your team/you/robot, but there is just no way in hell you can turn at 20fps. even using a holonomic drive system, it will not happen. Furthermore, I would love to see how you withstand the shock of such an impact... I just dont think it is possible

Cory

[JVN]

Originally posted by Frank(Aflak)
I dunno, a real fast robot in skilled hands can (we hope) compete with some fancier robots.

Frank,
Good luck, but your forgetting that a lot of the "fancier robots" will also be really fast, and also in skilled hands.
While no one can argue with the laws of physics, you actually have to hit something in order to use that wonderful momentum you were describing. Besides, did you think of robots with passive defense systems, like ramped sides and such? Does anyone remember "Big Jimmy" from 2000? This year might mark the return of the "wedge-bots".

Who says 2002 was the year of the drivetrain? I think it's 2003.

[Duke 13370]

I wish i could brag about our robot, but we'll be doing good to move this year.

[Frank(Aflak)]

We are rookies, just going for a distinguishing factor. Really fast was the easiest and probably the best we can hope for. We really wanted to see it get air time. We will probably destroy it by the end of regionals . . but we aren't (I don't think so, anyway) headed to nats so it only needs to make it through one event without causing serious damage to itself.

Yah. turning will be an issue at high speeds. So will wedges. I can just see our robot going flying off into the judges table off of a wedge robot . . . (CHARGE . . . errrr, oh-uh . . should we break for the exit?)

Besides, we plan to use it for bowling for freshmen in the off season (Run for your lives! Its the nerdclubbers!)

[GregT]

I REALLY hope FIRST thought through what happens when a bunch of 130 lb robots are running around at 10 ft/s autonomously (towards the same spot none the less).

Boy I can't wait to see a regional, be preapared to completely rebuild sub-systems.

Greg

[Madison]

Originally posted by Frank(Aflak)
I dunno, a real fast robot in skilled hands can (we hope) compete with some fancier robots.

I mean, we lack resources to build a stacking mechanism, so we had to go pusher.

To spice things up and give us an edge over the other rookie teams in the area (all but two of them are rookies, as i recall) we are doing four motor four wheel drive, with a really large pushing surface. We will probably not be able to outpush other veteran team's robots, but we hope to be able to outmanuever them. You can't save your stack if we can get past you.

Also, 130 lbs going 7 m/s is lots of momentum. If we hit you full speed we can probably move you quite a bit . . . .

We are building our frame stand severe shocks - what if we hit the rap at full speed? *CRUNCH*

(edit - we have enough push to accelerate up the ramp at a decent rate)

How much output torque is your drivetrain meant to put down to the floor?

Also, remember that if the other robots are moving toward you, they'll carry just as much momentum (give or take, of course) . . . you won't push them. You'll both stop with a loud thud. This was an integral part of 810's strategy last year, and, while it worked (we moved at 10 ft/s last season, and probably about the same this season in high), we did significant damage to ourselves and to the robots we hit. It wasn't pretty.

Anything above 15 ft/s, I think, will be impossible to control accurately.

If you want to run around just smashing into stuff, that's another story. That's not all that elegant, though, and it's not really a defining feature where I am concerned.

[Ken Leung]

It take quite a bit of motors to speed up your robot up to more than 15 ft/sec last year, because it will draw too much current using just 2 motors. You have to gear it high to get high speed, and with that you trade away torque, and stress your motors harder.

Even with the bigger circuit breaker this year, I will watch out for gearing the 2 drills into high speed. Anything more than 10 ft/sec is going to take away lots of torque, and without enough momentum you won't even get on top of the ramp. I predict a lot of teams are going to try gearing the motor really fast, and fail at getting up the ramp the first few try, especially the 1st year teams.

My suggestion is, test it out before you ship the robot. Get a good size ramp with the wire mess, and see if your robot can get on top without momentum. Because you won't get a head start to speed up your robot on flat ground every time.

For the more experienced team, I would try to build a 4 motor drive train for a fast robot, just so you will draw less current per motor, and have more torque over all. Output the 2 motor drive train while having the higher speed.

Yes, speed is important this year, even more so than last year, but be realistic about it. You won't be able to track the line at 20 ft per second and not get off track... And you won't be going anywhere when enemy robot is right in front of you pinning.

Transmission will be just as important this year too. Don't say you aren't warned.

[galewind]

Sometimes, speed is a factor that is overrated.

It all depends on your goal.

[JLambert]

Our team was initially shooting for about 15 - 20 feet per second. We've since opted to cut that down a bit, since we don't have a Jedi piloting our controls.

[DLyons]

I can't wait to see some of the collisions at the top of the ramp