Kitbots after Week 1

[AustinH]

How have the Kitbot chassis held up after the week 1 events? Have any teams that use the AM14U had particularly good or bad experiences with them given the intensity and physicality of the defense this year? Is it worth adding additional reinforcements, and if so, what did you use?

[jee7s]

Originally Posted by AustinH

How have the Kitbot chassis held up after the week 1 events? Have any teams that use the AM14U had particularly good or bad experiences with them given the intensity and physicality of the defense this year? Is it worth adding additional reinforcements, and if so, what did you use?

There was a team at Alamo that got a whole bunch of wiring in their timing belt pulleys on a kitbot. I'm not sure if it was theirs or an opponents, but I do know some robots lost wiring on the field. The wire in the pulley was mostly the three conductor wire used for PWM signals, etc. That caused quite a twist to their frame from the stress on the axle that required a few changes to the spacers to get everything in line after the wiring was removed.

I can't say I saw any kitbots falling apart, but that doesn't mean that the game wasn't doing damage.

[Richard Wallace]

We used the AM14U chassis and are happy with it.

Our chassis includes several "upgrades" -- 28"W x 27.5"L with 8.76" and 12.6" wheelbases, belly pans, four 4" performance wheels with nitrile tread on short wheelbase, two 4" dual omniwheels on long wheelbase, three CIM single speed gearboxes (7.86:1), #35 chain drive with simple deflection tensioners, pontoon cover/stiffeners that support intake arm clevises. There are pictures of our chassis posted previously.

We also built a one-piece bumper with corners reinforced by aluminum angle inside, with backing pocketed to clear minor protrusions and to enable a tight fit between wood and metal. We think this really helped limit impact stresses.

TL;DR: the 2014 kit chassis is a good starting point. It just needs to be fed some steroids, as Karthik would say.

[nicholsjj]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

We used the AM14U chassis and are happy with it.
TL;DR: the 2014 kit chassis is a good starting point. It just needs to be fed some steroids, as Karthik would say.

Robotics, the only sport in the World were encouraging steroid use will land you in the Hall of Fame.

[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?

[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

[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