Custom West-Coast Design Feedback

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by daliberator

Hey CD!
This year in the off-season, my team is going to work on a custom drivetrain. It looks like it's gonna be a west-coast, so I threw the attached design together.

Its main structural element is 16th inch steel sheet. For main supports, it has 16th inch steel tubing of varying heights, as well as a 8th inch steel chain-guard (For lack of a better word). The bearing blocks are 8th inch steel and the are at an interference fit with their respective bearings. I didn't know exactly how much to drop the center bearings, so I just guessed at 3/16ths of an inch.

This is the first drivetrain I have attempted, so any and all feedback is welcome.
Thanks,
daliberator

I apologize for the double post.

That's a very unique design you have their but unique designs are good! Exploring something new is a fun experience.

Before you settle on one style of drivebase, would you care to explain how your team decided that building a WCD style base was the right ones for you? What type of advantages do you see in building one? What are your design criteria(s) such as lightest, simplest, ease to build, ease to swap out parts, space efficient, etc.

Our team listed out what we wanted to see in a drivebase separate from a certain type of base and in the end we came up with a very decent solution that was extremely easy for us to build based on our immediate resources, was highly reliable considering it hasn't broken since we assembled it and put it through 6 competitions, and highly competitive as it gave is a good high speed our driver could control coupled with nice traction wheels and low gear for pushing through defenders.

[daliberator]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

I apologize for the double post.

That's a very unique design you have their but unique designs are good! Exploring something new is a fun experience.

Before you settle on one style of drivebase, would you care to explain how your team decided that building a WCD style base was the right ones for you? What type of advantages do you see in building one? What are your design criteria(s) such as lightest, simplest, ease to build, ease to swap out parts, space efficient, etc.

Our team listed out what we wanted to see in a drivebase separate from a certain type of base and in the end we came up with a very decent solution that was extremely easy for us to build based on our immediate resources, was highly reliable considering it hasn't broken since we assembled it and put it through 6 competitions, and highly competitive as it gave is a good high speed our driver could control coupled with nice traction wheels and low gear for pushing through defenders.

Thanks for the reply!
We're not quite done deciding, but we really liked how the west coast robots performed at the events we were at. We have fairly good machining resources, so it seemed like a logical step up from our KoP drive this year.

As for my design, after what I have seen in this thread, I have gone supports crazy. I grossly overestimated the amount of structural elements I need, as well as the fact that steel may be way overboard. I'm working on a new design that will feature aluminum. Are there any other changes you could reccomend?

Thanks,
daliberator

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by daliberator

Thanks for the reply!
We're not quite done deciding, but we really liked how the west coast robots performed at the events we were at. We have fairly good machining resources, so it seemed like a logical step up from our KoP drive this year.

As for my design, after what I have seen in this thread, I have gone supports crazy. I grossly overestimated the amount of structural elements I need, as well as the fact that steel may be way overboard. I'm working on a new design that will feature aluminum. Are there any other changes you could reccomend?

Thanks,
daliberator

Yes, WCD style bases many times lend to perform better but this is typically from the components they are using such as wheels, motors, no. of motors, gearboxes, wheel type/tread, wheel layout 6wd vs. 8wd, driver skill, etc among many other little details. WCD does give you some advantages in how you package these items to be lighter, take up less space, and provide a more efficient setup.

I personally have never built a WCD base only designed a few in Inventor. Some of the reasons teams jump to do a WCD is because its easy to change out a wheel and if you use bearings blocks you have integrated chain spacing which were two features that stuck out to our team a lot after last year. In the end we opted over building a WCD to try new products/techniques while improving performance. For instance we used solid rubber Colson wheels for our drive wheels and found a C-C chain spacing calculator from team 1640 to calculate the space between each wheel to eliminate chain tensioners (we used #35 chain). These two decisions allowed us to never touch the base and accomplished our two main reasons for looking at a WCD which is why we haven't made one. Our base was really easy to make and it built off of what we were comfortable with.

Its just always good to discuss why you intend to build something compared to doing something that a majority of high performing teams do just because they do it. Yes their WCDs are very, very good drivebases but their drivers are what really make them shine and that goes for every team. WCDs aren't very popular up here in New England but we do have our share of extremely good base drivers that can compete with the best. Most notably, team 195 the Cyberknights driver destroys the playing field to be honest. He is very in tune with the match play and more importantly how his robot best moves on the field. He does all this with just a modified kitbot. They swapped the front wheels for omnis and upgraded the gearboxes to 3 CIM single speeds and he uses them to the full potential which is something a lot of teams overlook. I use 195 as one of the many examples we have up here but a little goes a long way.

If its performance you are looking for make some small mechanical tweaks but really give your driver that time to practice especially in the offseason. That is what makes good drivebases.

[highlander]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Yes their WCDs are very, very good drivebases but their drivers are what really make them shine and that goes for every team. WCDs aren't very popular up here in New England but we do have our share of extremely good base drivers that can compete with the best.

If its performance you are looking for make some small mechanical tweaks but really give your driver that time to practice especially in the offseason. That is what makes good drivebases.

+1. A lot of people overlook the fact that the driver is at least 50% of how well you do at competition. A lot of the top teams spend years training their drivers before they even get to drive at competition. Make sure to chunk in time in your schedule to practice with your drive base.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by highlander

+1. A lot of people overlook the fact that the driver is at least 50% of how well you do at competition. A lot of the top teams spend years training their drivers before they even get to drive at competition. Make sure to chunk in time in your schedule to practice with your drive base.

Totally true. Driver practice is the bomb.