A new drivetrain Idea?

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

when you open the hinges and wheels are 180 degrees, wouldn't each side try to fight against each other?

I was thinking the same thing. However, What if the "hinges" were in opposite corners, the center of each side, or even if there were more than two hinges? While I, too, would wonder if the complexity gives you a distinct advantage over other designs, this is certainly inventive and interesting.

[KenWittlief]

It would be interesting to see a robot with two sets of these, effectiving spreading your drive wheels to a wider and longer wheel base when open

and changing the 'front' of the robot by 90º

[Jeremiah Johnson]

In 2005, 648's robot could extend to give it more stability. I don't remember the exact stats but it almost doubled it's short side. How we got it to do this was just lock the back wheel and power the front two wheels and then it would lock into place with servo actuated hooks. When we when back to get into the box all we would have to do was lift the hooks with the servos and squish back together.

This concept made me immediately think of that robot.

[Arefin Bari]

I personally think that it is a very innovative idea which can amaze some people if properly designed and built. This design doesn't have to be used particularly for a FIRST robot, but can be used for demos and offseason projects.

As far as the rule <R08> goes (after the start of the match the robot may expand up to a maximum volume of 60 inches by 60 inches by 60 inches)... there have been teams who have made their base shorter than 38x28 (bot had riggers and so forth but after full extension they were in the size limit). The problem Ben pointed out earlier is one of the very important component of this design (if you are building this chassis for a FIRST robot according to last year's rule) but there are ways to avoid the chassis extending more than 60". I do agree with you Ben where you said it's a very complex design, but how cool would it be to see something like this on a FIRST field.

... keep going Cody, show us your next step to this design.

p.s. - I am still waiting to hear from Baker, Neun, and Copioli about what they think about this design.

[Josh Murphy]

I'm not trying to crash your idea but I think that it would have to be thought out just a little bit better. I am a fan of creating new drive systems. It would be hard to convince me that this would work, and what are the advamtages to having this over a typical swerve drive?

[Not2B]

Well that's interesting!

If you had a particular design problem you were trying to solve, I'd say you might want to open it up to other possible solutions. But it SEEMS like you are floating an idea to see what other people thing - which is great! Being creative for creative's sake is great - you don't always need to be engineering a solution to a problem.

Let's say this never becomes a FIRST robot drivetrain - I bet it still gives you ideas on some other FIRST mechanism. Or - it made me think of this... an unpowered cart to carry stuff (maybe a FIRST robot) that folds up for easy shipment and storage in the pit. BAMN - already a use for FIRST.

Thanks for sharing!