paper: 2014 HOT Tech Notes

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

We've used this chassis setup for a couple of years now, so most of it just carries over from year to year. At the start we decided that it was easier to leave the gearboxes centered for packaging and CG purposes. At this point we are comfortable with the gearing and chain/belt routing that we've just left them there. It helps us get a jump start on the season knowing we can get a chassis design solidified quickly so we can move on to more game specific components of the robot.

We actually switched from the 9mm belts to 15mm belts after we broke a belt practicing before the season. We had quite a bit of practice time on that belt and only one side broke, so I would guess something might have happened to that belt when it was re-installed (we had just replaced wheels before it failed). We ended up using 15mm kevlar re-inforced belts to ensure that we didn't have any drivetrain issues. We had the space and weight, so better safe than sorry.

The only drivetrain issue we experienced this year was picking up some debris in the drive that flipped the belt over and shredded it.

We stayed with the 1/8 raise on the outside wheels. We didn't shave the wheels, but the turning performance did increase as the outside wheels wore down. We had some issues throughout the season with popping the main breaker, which I'm sure the turning scrub had quite a bit of influence.

Overall we weren't extremely happy with the chassis performance from an agility standpoint, getting out of t-bones, avoiding defense, etc. We will probably do a complete re-evaluation of the chassis size, shape, # of wheels for next year.

Was this a VP belt that snapped? I ask because we ran belts on our intake this year and ended up having to replace every single VP belt at least once. We had one non VP belt from a different supplier (SDP-SI?) and it survived the entire season. Trying to see if our experience was unique or if others have seen that the VP belts have a shorter lifetime than those of other suppliers or if there was something different between the runs.

* And anyone who is worried, VP belts are probably fine for anyone who does a sane season. 125's was NOT sane.