Transmissions Effective in This Year's Game?

[Starke]

Team #340 found that we really did not need a transmission this year. It was helpful for major pushing matches, but overall was not used as much as we thought.

I created a white paper on our DeWalt XRP Transmissions, with what we are going to do to make it more effective.

What did other teams find? Did you actually need the transmission for this year's competition?

[Swampdude]

I've been wanting to give a big thumbs up for the AM shifters. Those guys made a great product. We gave them hell with no failures whatsoever. They have the right range of output to get the high and low speeds you'd want to work with. Also they shipped within a day or so of ordering. Then they sent us a spare replacement gear (just a bonus - didn't need it), and gave us a nifty bag of zip ties at Nationals. The price was right, and we didn't have to waste a lot of our design period just trying to manufacture something similar.
Also I've seen at least 3 different modifications for shifting. Everyone mounted them differently. So they're very adaptable. They're fairly light, I think a pound or so lighter than the kit transmissions. They came assembled, you only attach the pistons for shifting, and the motors - but they come with the hardware (can't get easier than that). But my favorite part was their durability.
We're having "take your child to work day" here at Pratt and Whitney today. At least 70 kids have driven our bot at the display. They're beating the crap out of it, but it's doing fine. OK I'm done, Thanks Andy and Mark - and thanks for your example of entrepreneurship.

Because we had a late start we ended up using the kit transmissions and they were a major savior to us. They were excellent all purpose transmissions that was a nice balance between pushing power and speed.

Honestly, for the strategy we played, those kit transmissions were exactly what we needed. There really weren't many pushing battles this year (compared to previous years) and if you were too fast, it was hard to control, especially with all the objects on the playing field (goals, tetras, loading zone areas).

Kudos to Paul C. and John VN again on the excellent addition and upgrade to the kit of parts.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Starke340

Team #340 found that we really did not need a transmission this year. It was helpful for major pushing matches, but overall was not used as much as we thought.

I couldn't agree with you more. We put a LOT of work into building the most powerful transmission in the nation and we never really got a chance to use it to it's full potential. When we decided to build it we thought it was the right transmission for the game (we even were thinking of three speeds) but now that we have seen how the game is played, we could have gotten away with much less. You can check out the motors here and the two speeds here.

We'll put out a whitepaper in the summer.

Next year, I'd like to do 4 DeChips (CIM w/ Dewalt tranny) each directly driving a wheel (no chains). But, it is up to the team and depends on the game.

[Justin Boudreau]

We designed and built our own transmissions, each one powered by two CIM motors. In my opinion these two-speed, shift on the fly transmissions, combined with our Breco-flex tracks were critical in winning two regional competitions.

Our high speed was about 12 ft per second, and it gave us the ability to consistently get to any goal that we needed to, while averaging more than 5 tetras a match.

With the ability to score as well as we could (relative to our regionals), a lot of teams decided to play defensively against us, and that is where the low gear came into play. We generated quite a buzz among the other teams at the Waterloo regional when we showed that we could hold our own in a shoving match with our good friends from Truck Town. Some people may also recall that during our second practice match on Galileo last week we pushed 254 and 469 across the field at the same time.

Like I said above, I absolutely loved our transmissions, they definitely made my job as field coach a little bit easier.

BTW, I loved all three of the above mentioned robots, congrats to 254 on winning our division and ending the season as Championship finalists.

[Conor Ryan]

from what i noticed, transmissions didn't really start to make a difference in games until the Einstein division started up. Where you had matches with 3 robots that could cap atleast 5 per match, and what it came down to was who could get into the key positisions faster and cap quickly. I also didn't notice much low gear use. Nobody really got shoved around all that much, it was more of speed which was used to out maneuver and dodge others. But also take into concideration that the Stock Tranny was soo good this year.

[David Hoff]

We used JVN's 2 speed transmission this year and we found that low speed was fast enough. We were also over-weight and taking the shifting pneuamtics off put us under so we thought is was in our best interst to not shift. We may throw the pneumatics back on at the IRI to do have some fun, but other than that we had no reason for it this year.

[techtiger1]

Three Tranmissions talked about in this thread I really liked. The Kop gear boxes which my team used which were amazingly powerful and reliable. The Dewalts which 180 had with a brilliant tank tread system. The Dewalts were easy to assemble and very very powerful. The Am shifters are amazing I was at all two of swampthing's regionals and Tytus ran them all over and they were still fine at nationals. There extrememly well built and they run great. Thank you Andy and co. for making them avaible to the FIRST world.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

The Dewalts were easy to assemble and very very powerful.

I'm sorry but Dewalt transmissions are quite powerless actually. The power is being applied by the motor through the transmission. If anything, the transmission actually decreases the output power of the system to do inefficiencies.

So, a dechip will have the same power as an andymark with 1 cim. More power comes from more motors (like this) not different transmissions.

[xzvrw2]

See we don't use transmissions, we gear it down with gears and sprockets, all one speed. It is so reliable and has very low friction. If you want to see some pics of it just ask and you shall receive.

[Spikey]

We used the kit transmissions and they were a great asset. I was surprised that more teams did not use them. Many teams had trouble driving and that could have been solved if they had used the kit transmissions. Our team used the kit transmissions to great effect, we combined them with a 6 wheel drive train and 6 pneumatic tires we had one of the most powerful drive trains of any robot at our regionals. The only teams that could push us were teams with sloped sides who either picked us up or we drove on top of them. We pushed several robots with very complicated transmissions into the wall. Sometimes simplicity helps when designing a fast and powerful drive train.

[scott]

I would like to add onto yet another Andy-Mark Tranny 2 Thumbs-UP!1 447 used them all year, and we also put it throw its paces and thus far we have not touched it since installation during the build phase. If your team has the "cash-money", I HIGHLY suggest you get them. Very Light-Weight, Durable is not even the word for this transmission(Perhaps. . .ULTRA Durable).
They were a huge help in this year's game, seeing how we could switch from Offensive based robot to a defensive robot really allowed us to play our strategy on more of the sitution of the game, rather than having to stay offensive minded.
Plus, did I mention their durability??

Andy and Mark, you are gods amongst men!!11 AWESEOME transmission!!11

[Crash&Burn]

transmission (thumbs up), I dunno, It helped to machine a lot of the parts or order them seperately. I'd like to think that our bot was simple and elegant (probably one of the more inelaborate bots there.) We placed pretty well too. I also like to think we would have gone to einstein if we had won our final match. BUT NO... Im not bitter, not bitter at all. it is only my final year ::sobs::

[Captain Rich]

Ok, is this thread debating multi speed transmissions or transmissions in general? Cus I didn't see any robots gearing only with sprockets, although there were a few with exposed gears. Either way, a fancy transmission is in my opinion never required, as long as it is reliable and moving at a decent clip. We always shoot for 6 ft per second, and can get in someone's way if we need to, although pushing them dosen't work.

[techtiger1]

[quote=sanddrag]I'm sorry but Dewalt transmissions are quite powerless actually. The power is being applied by the motor through the transmission. If anything, the transmission actually decreases the output power of the system to do inefficiencies.

Absolutely, Sry I was in a bit of a rush on that post should have worded it better, but thanks for the correction.