Drive Train and wheels

[vadyr]

as many of you know, or dont know, 103 has been legendary for their use of casters and two drive wheels in the rear....and this gave us our famous spin move, which somehow gets passed onto drivers magically...haha.....but this year....WE SCRAPPED IT! we went to an ultra light but ultra powerful and fast 6 wheel drive system....we can still turn on a dime and do our spin move, but we are a lot stronger and a lot more stable. in years past we were pushed around like nobodies business, but our agility kept us in the game...now we have the ability to push and be agile...what the heck more could you want from a drive system?! our drive is a gearbox with 3 wheels in each, powered by a 2 speed pneumatically shifted andymark gearbox....total weight of the drive system...nada....im not sure on the numbers, but i believe each gearbox and transmission weighed about 22 pounds...so thats only 44 pounds for the drive system...which could be better, or could be much worse...hehe

[Ben Piecuch]

Many teams stick with a simple 2wd system, as it is cheap, efficient, lightweight and simple to build. However, you've quickly discovered that they are complicated to drive and easily pushed around.

If you are using a common "swivel caster" on the front of the robot, I can offer one quick, simple change to make it drive 100% better. This website, http://www.omniwheel.com offers a "transwheel" that practically eliminates the initial wobble that a swivel castor produces. They are very cheap wheels, and fairly indestructable, and we've used them with great success in the past. However, they will not improve your power, or resistance to side loads.

YMMV,

BEN

[Evil Asian]

thnks. right now we are trying to think of a way to make up for the lost of wight. we are a light wight class and i was thinking that the drive train could help make it up