Low Rider Club 2014

[TikiTech]

Add us to the 1/16" low rider club...

Our cross braces and electronics mounting rails are welded under our frame, so everything sits nested inside the frame.

It only became a concern when we had a code issue in auto. Our first practice match of the season we ran into the wall in our torque gear and in those 10 seconds we burned through the carpet and toasted a brand new set of Vex 4" Versa wheels.

In fact, that practice match in teleop we were unable to move since in the time between auto and teleop the carpet and what was left of the tire material cooled and we were GLUED in place. The field techs were so happy with us!! Took a good 10 minutes to pry the robot from the field.

Of course the practice matches were held on the game field and every time we set up our robot throughout the event we could not help but smile. We were concerned that we would trip breakers with our 6 CIM drive. After the wall burnout we felt that was no longer an issue. Plus seeing your "patch" when you went to set up you robot, priceless....

Luckly we had a bunch of spares. This is our first time using a west coast drive and wasn't sure of how badly they could wear tires out during defense.

We have upgraded to Colsons for the championships.. Hope they wear better.

Aloha!

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by TikiTech

In fact, that practice match in teleop we were unable to move since in the time between auto and teleop the carpet and what was left of the tire material cooled and we were GLUED in place. The field techs were so happy with us!! Took a good 10 minutes to pry the robot from the field.

Pictures?

[TikiTech]

I will check with the students.

The field crew was not amused so they might not of gotten one. We were kind of busy pealing the robot off the floor.

I will check to see if the worn tires are not in the crate. If they are not I will post a picture of them tonight after our meeting. I was amazed.. We put them on our intake for the rest of practice as a badge of honor. Sadly they did effect the pick up and we replaced them before the qualifications.

[Tyler2517]

When we lost one our wheels we were 1/4 off the ground on that side. (running eliminations like that) other wise we were 1/2-3/4 off the ground. We some how still got lots of carpet in out bevel gears 6 inches off the ground still not sure how that happens.

[mrnoble]

Our practice bot was at 1/2", and we lowered the comp bot once we tried driving over uneven carpet tape and found that it could keep going. 1/4".

[Henrique Schmit]

We didn't suppose to have such a low robot, but for some time there was the head of a bolt scratching the ground, so we had to change the side of a spring washer so it didn't happen, that would make our robot 1mm away from the ground, or 0.0393701 inches.

[Botwoon]

Our robot scrapes the ground when it rides on carpet, do we win?

[Henrique Schmit]

Originally Posted by Botwoon

Our robot scrapes the ground when it rides on carpet, do we win?

I guess you can't get closer than that, there were a few parts of our robot scraping the ground, but we managed to fix those, so we're not so far away from you.

[michael.saxon]

Originally Posted by Botwoon

Our robot scrapes the ground when it rides on carpet, do we win?

Pretty much. We were in a similar situation with the heads of rivets on the bottom of our belly pan. We had to put packing tape over them to keep them from ripping up the gaffer's tape

[nathannfm]

Some of you guys sure would have had a fun time at MAR CMP, the cement floor was so bad there were gaps where they couldn't get parts of the field to fit together right. Needless to say the carpet wasn't exactily flat and was the most torn up FRC carpet I have ever seen by the end of the day.

[rkgoyankees]

Our gear covers are at best 1/8'' off the ground.

[TikiTech]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Pictures?

Here is the wear after our autonomous burnout at the field wall.



By the time the auto ended and teleop started the tire material had cooled and adhered to the carpet..

No teleop for our first practice match and some grumpy field techs..

We have upgraded to colsons now. I would like to try it again and compare wear though I doubt we would be popular after that.

I doubt we could of drove much after burning off that much material. We only have 1/16" of clearance..

Still looking for picture of carpet damage..

[Christopher149]

857 is something like 1/2". Makes our 2013 bot look absolutely silly with about 3.5" clearance, with then several more inches up to our electrical board.

[Whippet]

4301 had its belly pan dragging on the ground for an entire regional. When on a hard floor, there's barely enough clearance to slip a sheet of paper underneath.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by TikiTech

We have upgraded to Colsons for the championships.. Hope they wear better.

We ran 3" diam, 1.5" wide Colson wheels (hence our low ground clearance) and replaced them for each regional, not because they wore, but because we swapped our whole drive-trains for unrelated reasons.

Anybody who saw us could attest that we were arguably the pushiest robot on the field, running 6CIM, 6w tank drive, with 2 speeds geared 5.5fps and 15.5 fps. We prided ourselves on bulldozing just about everybody down the field at both regionals.

The Colsons show some superficial wear on them. They felt a little softer after the regional than they were at the start, but they were neither (visual comparison) smaller than brand new wheels, nor did they push less hard.

Our team was extremely satisfied with the Colson wheel's performance, and we will definitely run them anytime we need traction in future games (who needs wheels in next year's water game )