How to assemble Vex VersaPlanetary?

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

While the Versa part of VersaPlanetary can cause some confusion (so many parts left over after you've assembled a complete unit), I cannot sing the praises of those gearboxes loud enough.

I've fallen head over heals for them. Overclocked is using 10 (yes 10) of them on their competition robot and bunches more on prototypes, practice chassis, fall projects, ...

I've even made a graphic showing "best practices" (see attached jpg).

If you are not using VersaPlanetaries, you are missing out. My favorite thing about them? They let you be "Wrong Late" and survive. Being Wrong Late is the number one killer of FIRST aspirations.

If you are 25 lbs over weight (as Overclocked was two weeks ago) and you still have TIME then your dreams are not dead. Time gives the the luxurey of going on a diet. However, if you are Wrong Late on weight, often your only option is to start hacking your robot to bits (probably making it much less capable or robust or something good that you wished you still had).

Gear Ratios and Motor Selection are two areas where FIRST teams are habitually Wront Late. They don't discover that they can't lift their robot off the ground or that their arm is too fast to control or that they just cannot take that long to lift a tote or that they need just a little more oomph in that kicker, etc. until they are almost ready to put the robot in a bag.

VersaPlanetaries make this a recoverable situation.

I don't own stock in Vex or IFI, but every team I'm associated with ends up owning boat load of VersaPlanetaries. If you're running a FIRST team, you probably should too.

Cheers,
Dr. Joe

100% agree. VersaPlanetaries are just so cheap and versatile, they've really been our go-to gearbox this year. If we find out that a gearing isn't quite right, we can always change it. For manipulators, you just can't beat them.