Non-Rectangular Frames

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by joelg236

Our frame was a blessing and a curse. It was fantastic for lining up, but terrible for shooting anywhere else. Bumpers were pretty straight forward, we just built them in the segments around the frame. Driving was somewhat off-balance, since more weight was on one side.

Everything else was basically the same as a normal rectangle-bot. I'm curious what it was like for circular bots though.

I never got a chance to see your drivetrain up close, could you describe in a little more detail how it worked out? Was one side of the wheelbase longer than the other?

[jacob9706]

I'm an alumni from 3574 and as a 3rd year team I am ecstatic to see that their unique design of a perfectly circular robot with a 8 wheel tank, shiffters an not one ounce of chain got some national recognition.

One thing that struck me as a unique solution to the bumpers was the use of a industrial vacuum bag to bend the glued together 1/4 in (?) pieces of wood to create curved bumper pieces that fit perfectly around the frame which was made from Nomex honeycomb (carbon fiber airplane flooring) and cut on an Omax water-jet. We like to say that we grew a round tree though.

The drive was CAD'ed by a self taught student in the off-season and was implemented into the circular frame.

Another fun feature of their robot was the ability to filter discs within the collection mechanism. It had no sensors to do it, just a mechanical toggle that the disc would trigger if it was upside down.