Kitbots after Week 1

[AustinH]

Yeah, on the upgrade front, we definitely went with different gearboxes, different wheels, polycarb bellypan etc. We do have a fairly substantial cross brace (1.25 aluminum box tubing, 1/8in wall) that doubles as a mount for several accessories, but my worry is that the provided churros that span the interior of the robot won't cut it. I would really, really love to be proven wrong.

Some of the photos of robot damage from this year are absolutely terrifying, especially the trashed cylinders. We have spares of the things that go outside of our frame perimeter. I was not expecting to need to have spares on hand for the internal guts of our robot.

[Max Boord]

Make sure you have a belly pan. We used ours to play D on our comp bot and in 1 hour of realistic practice the entire frame turned into a 45 degree parallelogram.

[IKE]

I was LRI at Southfield this weekend and saw a lot of kit-bot and improved kit-bots that faired very well. The architecture of the kit-bot was basically state of the art chassis for 2006-2008 if you just add in a set of shifters. A lot of great robots played really well with significantly less.

Structural bellypans are a great add on. Probably even above shifters. While it doesn't need to be made out of 1/4" steel, a good belly pan attached with rigid connection (not zip ties). If you have ever built a cheap set of shelves, the carboard panel for the back is more important than looks. It adds a ton to the structural rigidity of the shelves.

[gurellia53]

We used an AM14U with the 8wd upgrade and Vex Pro 3 CIM ball shifters. We also added a bellypan of perforated polycarbonate similar to this. It significantly stiffened our frame, was easy to bolt on, and was used as an electronics board. We also added some aluminum gussets and brackets to help add strength.

We beat our robot hard this weekend and had no issues with the drivetrain other than some field debris in one of the belts. I've been very impressed.

[JohnFogarty]

4901 used the kitbot with the 3CIM upgrades with a 0.125" Aluminum 3003 Belly-pan with much success. No damage whatsoever.

[Whippet]

Anyone have any feedback on the AM14U with the mecum upgrade package?

[KCmoon]

From our team the only problem we had was that the wheels chipped. We will probably have to replace most of them as the treads were wearing very hard and our traction is probably different because of it.

[jeremylee]

Originally Posted by KCmoon

From our team the only problem we had was that the wheels chipped. We will probably have to replace most of them as the treads were wearing very hard and our traction is probably different because of it.

Ours have some chipped lugs also, though it hasn't seemed to affect traction much. We have 3 days of practice before we bagged and a regional under our belt now. Looks like we could go another regional if we wanted to on the same set even though we may replace them. I think you could run the lugs flat if you wanted and keep going (basically be similar to a stealth wheel).

[Tim Lehmann4967]

We cut our AM14U into a square instead of long or wide. So far it has held up very well(knock on wood) and we have very minimal reinforcements. My only complaint is that the ToughBox Minis can't take three CIMs

[Ian Curtis]

We have yet to compete, but with our fully loaded robot (110-120 lbs with bumpers & batteries) we get some bouncing on very tight radius turns with the 1/2 wide 1/2 long square AM14U configuration. Not a big problem, but a minor annoyance. I suspect the critical point is somewhere north of 100 pounds, as we never noticed it until after the bumpers went on.

[hrench]

My team 1108 used the kit frame to win the Crossroads regional. We have stock wheels and stock gear-boxes but with up-ratio gears. We're about 28" square.

We've seen extensive wear on the wheel treads, but they don't seem to grip all that much less. Weighing 95 lbs, we're still able to push most robots, especially sideways. Across the front, we have an exposed section of the extrusion where we took a significant hit and bent it in about two inches. We bashed it back out and bolted a piece of steel bar-stock below the angle and it was okay through the finals.

With a slightly light robot, four CIMS and up-ratio gears, we've measured 110 lbs of pulling force and about 12 ft/sec. Great acceleration too. I think these numbers make you competitive in most arenas. We'll see how that works out for the Championships.

I think its' easier to build a robot on than the c-frame was, but on the downside, it takes away one more area to be creative from the kids. But we're a small team and saving the resources for the rest of the design was beneficial to us. It's also a change mounting bumpers to.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by IKE

Structural bellypans are a great add on. Probably even above shifters. While it doesn't need to be made out of 1/4" steel, a good belly pan attached with rigid connection (not zip ties). If you have ever built a cheap set of shelves, the carboard panel for the back is more important than looks. It adds a ton to the structural rigidity of the shelves.

Just to reinforce what Isaac says above, my team's previously mentioned belly pan is made of 1/8th inch aluminum with edge bends for stiffness. See pictures @averagejoes3620 on Twitter.

[rsisk]

Love the new kit bot. Only complaint, picked up a lot of carpet and tape in the wheels. With everything so close to the ground it really does pick up a lot of ground debris

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by IKE

I was LRI at Southfield this weekend and saw a lot of kit-bot and improved kit-bots that faired very well. The architecture of the kit-bot was basically state of the art chassis for 2006-2008 if you just add in a set of shifters. A lot of great robots played really well with significantly less.

Structural bellypans are a great add on. Probably even above shifters. While it doesn't need to be made out of 1/4" steel, a good belly pan attached with rigid connection (not zip ties). If you have ever built a cheap set of shelves, the carboard panel for the back is more important than looks. It adds a ton to the structural rigidity of the shelves.

Ike, what you consider state-of-the-art right now?

[Tem1514 Mentor]

The kitbot with a nicely mounted set of bumpers will take and yes give hits as it comes out of the box.

Add good solid belly pans is the best place to start. We used 1/4 inch plywood.

But don't do what one of drivers did was to lose control in the school hallway and crash at full speed into a brick wall without the bumpers installed. That took a hour of body work to get the bent frame straighten out.