Center Wheel Drop?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

The right answer is a function of many things. How stiff is your robot frame? Stiffer frames can get away with less drop. How high is the center of mass? A high CoM exacerbates rock when accelerating or decelerating. How willing are you to frequently replace wheels/tread? The middle wheel generally wears quickest, reducing the effective drop over time. Being proactive about replacing it (or rotating wheels) lets you get away with less drop. Driver preference also plays a role in this. A little bit of scrub is helpful for tracking straight and for doing controlled turns, while more rock makes the robot drive more smoothly (but requires greater driver skill or software help to control).

Some of these factors are difficult to estimate beforehand. As a general rule, especially with the smaller robots used the past two seasons, most teams will be happy with 1/8" of drop.

This is a good answer, anyone in here throwing out specific numbers is playing a dangerous game.

The last two years of sizing rules have really changed all this. Not many true "long" bots still exist, and it seems the square-bot is almost standard.

This along with more diversity in wheels being used, has greatly changed the game.

It used to be simple enough back in the days of 28x38 and almost everyone running kop or roughtop to say 3/16", but it isn't anymore.

You're doing people a disservice by stating a number as an absolute on here.