pic: Spectrum Fall 2013 Drivetrain

[cbale2000]

A few suggestions...

1. Consider direct driving the center wheel from the gearbox. There's really no reason not to and it virtually guarantees that regardless of what might break elsewhere on the drive system (short of the gearbox itself) you'll always have one working wheel. It's also a good way to help balance the robots weight. Team 703 has done this for several years and its worked great.

2. Consider vertically offsetting the outer wheels from the center one. Doing this greatly improved the robots ability to turn. In the past when we used large numbers of wheels in our drive, we would position the wheels on an arc of something like ~30ft, it worked well because it could turn on a dime, but in a pushing match you'd always have at least 4 wheels on the floor.

3. Without knowing your teams experience with them, I might advise against using the VersaWheels, I've talked to several teams that have used them and complained that they wear down quite quickly, and unlike Traction Wheels, must be completely replaced, instead of replacing just the tread. That said, this is just what I've heard, your experience (if any) may very well be different.