Hopefully this year's drive train will be better.

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Very well said. I couldn't agree more. In 2005 it was easier than EVER before to build a very competitive robot for the game. But we still need it to be even easier than that? No way. It is supposed to be difficult, it is supposed to be challenging, and you are supposed to go beyond just what the instructions tell you. Back in the day, we had no gearboxes, we had no frame, heck, we had no CIM motors. If utilizing the kit gearbox is a challenge for you, I think something is wrong. Go back even just a few years and see what the kit gave you, and then you'll see that you've really "got it made" now.

Sorry about following you off topic on this thought again, but I think this needs to be said.

FIRST is difficult and it is challenging, but you aren’t necessarily required to go off and build an 8 motor drivetrain and 4 motor / 8 pneumatic piston arm mechanism for the heck of it when a 2 motor non-shifting drivetrain and 2 motor arm does just as good a job. IMHO being competitive in FIRST accomplished by doing the job as simply as possible while attempting (not necessarily succeeding) to do it as gracefully as possible. Why use all 12+ motors on something that can be done with 4 or 6? 254’s 2005 robot had a 4-motor shifting drive system that was pretty simple and a 2 motor - 2 joint arm. Simple and effective; and we even ran about 1/3 of our total matches with just 2 motors powered in our drivetrain.

What I’m trying to say is that you should not necessarily be looking to build the next “cool” thing, unless that’s your team’s goal and you’ve got the resources to finish it by ship date. If you’re worried about your resources, or don’t want to have to use them if you don’t have to then using premade components like those of AM or the KoP is a great option. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that all the “upper echelon” teams custom machine absolutely every part of their robot (you could see a few cute AM stickers on parts of our 2005 robot, and we got the complimentary bag of zip-ties from Andy Baker at The Championship to prove it, too). IMHO the teams who have the best chance at success are the ones who know where they can save time and money on machining by using or using part of some premade equivalent.

-The Bill

[Conor Ryan]

improvement? We're already getting WAY more than we used to, try being on a rookie team 2 years ago, the only transmission you got was the transmission you get on a Bosch Hand Drill. Then you'd also get a right angle drive system too, personally I think we are lucky enough with what we got. And its not that hard find a way to make the output shaft fit the speed that you want. There should some challenge and FRC shouldn't be too simple. And for the mis-match units, I think they were trying to make it as cheap as possible, I don't want to be paying more than $2,000 for a kit with standard units, if its cheaper using 2 different units, go ahead I'm sure I'll be fine

The kit transmission met its goal this year, get as many teams as possible to be able to have a driving robot. Plus, how many teams did you see actually moving this year? Compare that to years past, you'll see a major improvement.

check www.andymark.biz out too they got several options for what you can use to as a pre-fabricated solution.

[lukevanoort]

Yeah, I'm going to agree with the previous comments. The '05 KoP is excellent. All we did was convert ours to 4wd with the same kit sprocket, and add different wheels and wheel sprockets. We left four CIMs in the drivetrain and had one of the most powerful non tread robots. And, unlike previous years there was no "death rattle" from the transmissions or motor fondue. Sure a shift-on-the-fly fourspeed kiwi drive rocks, but if we got that in the KoP, what would people like Andy Baker have to do? Look, 587 has never shifted, nor done anything fancy. We're a sixth year team. Also, we won the 2003 VCU GM award with drills at right angles and bigger pneumatic wheels. The only problem I have with the KoP is its mass, but it is a very solid chassis and gearbox.