Success with Tank Treads

[Jessica Boucher]

In 2000 237's bot originally had tank treads (I know, can you believe it? ), which basically lasted through our practice rounds at UTC. I couldn't go that day, but the people who came back looked crestfallen...the thing was slow as molasses and was too troublesome. After our practice rounds, the pit crew made the decision to switch to wheels...and it was the best decision we could have made. We ended up seeding in the top 8 and walking away with the win.

I'm not saying that treads are always a bad decision....they do have their good points (Baker already listed them above)...and I trust that they went through all those pros and cons before they decided to originally use them.

In the end, it's just a personal decision your team has to make. Use these pros & cons, compare them with what your team wants to be strong at and the answer will be clear

[adunakin]

618 went with treads last year and did well. While I do agree with the simplicity arguement against treads, who said life had to be simple!

[Mike Norton]

http://www.valleytech.k12.ma.us/robo...2%20Monday.jpg

We have been doing tracks for 10 years now.

The most important thing is you power train. if you get your power just right the tracks work great.

We found out how much power a track can take. What we did was speed up the track which lowers the power. This way the robots is fast and still have great pushing and pulling power. with out ripping the tracks


Tracks are very costly but done right is very easy to drive under auto mode and very easy for the driver to control.


Last thing you need to keep your center of gravity as low as you can. this also helps out the tracks