Velcro tread

[Brandon Zalinsky]

To clear up the facts about 1058's drop-down velcro drivetrain. (you can see it in this video at 1:23 and 1:43):

It is two piston-actuated, drop-down wheels driven off the same axle that drives the rear mecanum wheels. They pivot on swing arms and lift the rear mecanums off the ground. The wheels are 6" Andymark Plaction wheels treaded with commercial-grade (I don't know which product exactly) Velcro. We planned to have the drop-drive on for our first competition, the UNH District Event, but we only ended up bringing a whole bunch of pieces that never made it on the machine. It is an auxiliary drive, and by no means has to be on for the robot to drive well. At UNH, we talked to one of the inspectors about the legality of the wheels and showed him our Velcro-treaded wheels. He got a good laugh and said he was OK with putting it on if we had time at the competition. The same thing happened at Northeastern University District Event, with the same results. We then had the system on for the New England Championship event, and made it a point to show the inspectors that we had the Velcro-treaded wheels. They were ruled legal. The inspectors even called us back to re-measure our bumpers, as there was a question regarding to when the wheels were activated. When the robot tilted forward, the inspectors made sure that the front of the bumper did not dip below 2" from the floor. They passed without modification, and we continued competing.

I hope this cleared up any questions you may have had regarding 1058's use of Velcro in 2014.