Drive Train & Control Types '07

[Carpe_Noctem]

I'm at the Peachtree Regional in Atlantaand i have seen a lot of omni drive trains. Many are the set-up of 2 omni, one on back and one on front....
What is common at the other regionals?

Also i have seen some very innovative control schemes!
Team 1261 won an award mainly for their mix of a Guitar Hero guitar controller and a Xbox 360 controller!
Are there any more kinds out there?

[dtape]

can you get a picture of 1261's control board?

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Carpe_Noctem

I'm at the Peachtree Regional in Atlantaand i have seen a lot of omni drive trains. Many are the set-up of 2 omni, one on back and one on front....
What is common at the other regionals?

Up at Chesapeake, it seems that we're seeing a lot of kit drivetrains (loosely defined as BaneBots transmissions and AM kit wheels, most with the kit frame). There are a few IFI wheels, but there's about as many teams running AndyMark mecanums to varying degrees of success.

However, mecanums haven't completely killed off traditional omni--both 341 and 1418 are rolling on some variation of AM omnis (plastic for 341, aluminum for 1418).

[teenmisfit]

Personally i find 175 drivetrain to be wonderful. It isnt new but every year it helps them do wonderful. They use 2 drivetrains. One is the normal bot 6 wheel 4cim drivetrain and then they have another drivetrain mounted sideways underneath the chassis on pneumatic pistons. When this drive train pops down it enables them to physically move sideways.

Powerhouse drivetrains are also do verywell this year because defense and pushing robots aside to score ringers is big.

[Adamskiy]

Originally Posted by dtape

can you get a picture of 1261's control board?

Not really much of a control board, just 80-20 and plexiglass. For the Guitar Hero controller, instead of trying to interface with the Playstation2 plug, we just ran wires directly from the switches to the pinouts. We then used a USB Chicklet for the XBox 360 controller.

Our drive system (all wheel drive) was chain-driven off of two large CIMS with two IFI "sticky" wheels in the front and two omni wheels in the back, and operated with the Xbox controller. Our manipulator (sorry, no picture) was a cable-operated elevator that had two "fingers" that would slide under a tube, and two rubber wheels that would pull a tube in and rotate it upward to about a 30-degree angle.

The winch was a small CIM with a BaneBots gearhead and encoder....so we used 3 of "string" buttons on the guitar for high/medium/low positions, with the other 2 buttons used for manual adjustment. The load/unload function of our grabber was then controlled by the "strum" switches on the guitar.

[JackN]

This seems to be the year of the crab. I have seen so many great teams use it including 71, 111, 118, 384/1086/540, 469, 1503/1680 648 and 1625. It has been very interesting to see all of these teams sliding around the field. These drivetrains are very good but they require some very skilled drivers to operate.

I also was impressed by 703's 14WD. No that is not a misprint. Search CD Media for it. The strength it gave them made them strong defenders and they are able to get up just about any ramp that is put down in front of them.

The two quickest drives I have seen are 247 and 1114. I know the Simbots can get to 14 FPS and I would not be surprised if Da Bears weren't going at least that fast. These two robots are going to be scary at championship.

[rachal]

Here in California, I have been seeing mostly 4/6 WDs, lots of interesting omni setups, and a few mecanum drives (my team is the only one I've seen so far with non-AM mecanums).

There was one very interesting omnidrive at SVR (I think it was team 362) that used two wheels on each side of the bot, with each pair parallel to its corresponding side. Pretty wicked looking

I also saw one with AM omnis arranged at 45 degree angles, much like mecanums.

I really like 254's 6WD drive. It's not only faster than my team's mecanum bot (which can go about 13-14 fps), but it can turn on point better than us Even though it has a significant lack of pushing power, the agility is beautiful.

[Cuog]

Originally Posted by rachal

There was one very interesting omnidrive at SVR (I think it was team 362) that used two wheels on each side of the bot, with each pair parallel to its corresponding side. Pretty wicked looking

I also saw one with AM omnis arranged at 45 degree angles, much like mecanums.

422 also did the first method of omni wheels, although for ramping I think that the 45 degree method would have been better.

We also controlled it like a first person shooter game to try and get a more intuitive drive system.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by rachal

Here in California, I have been seeing mostly 4/6 WDs, lots of interesting omni setups, and a few mecanum drives (my team is the only one I've seen so far with non-AM mecanums).

There was one very interesting omnidrive at SVR (I think it was team 362) that used two wheels on each side of the bot, with each pair parallel to its corresponding side. Pretty wicked looking

I also saw one with AM omnis arranged at 45 degree angles, much like mecanums.

I really like 254's 6WD drive. It's not only faster than my team's mecanum bot (which can go about 13-14 fps), but it can turn on point better than us Even though it has a significant lack of pushing power, the agility is beautiful.

Lack of pushing power? I think they would be upset if they heard that...

They have a 5fps/16fps (or 6/15 I forget...). The high gear is very fast, and the low gear is putting out a significant amount of torque, probably just around traction limited knowing them (which is a lot, using gum rubber roughtop tread... which is about the highest coefficient of friction you can legally get for wheels). So, I'd say they can push if they need to; They're just too busy scoring.

[Joel J]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Lack of pushing power? I think they would be upset if they heard that...

They have a 5fps/16fps (or 6/15 I forget...). The high gear is very fast, and the low gear is putting out a significant amount of torque, probably just around traction limited knowing them (which is a lot, using gum rubber roughtop tread... which is about the highest coefficient of friction you can legally get for wheels). So, I'd say they can push if they need to; They're just too busy scoring.

I don't think they are using bumpers, and I think they are in the 110 lb weight class. So, they are at about 124lbs, with battery (maximum). I also read something about them weighing about 85lbs, because they were planning on adding ramps. If they didn't add weight to get to 110lbs, then they are really scrawny at 100lbs, with battery. That hurts their pushing power. 100*1.3 is equivalent to 150*.867, about the amount of traction advantage a full-weighted 4ft class robot would have with something even less grippy than the old wheelchair wheels that were in the kit. They have the torque, and they have the treads, but they are lacking the weight.

[Adamskiy]

Originally Posted by Cuog

We also controlled it like a first person shooter game to try and get a more intuitive drive system.

As did we with our Xbox controller - left thumbstick was throttle, and right thumbstick was steering.....so basically the same as Halo

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by 1derboy

This seems to be the year of the crab. I have seen so many great teams use it including 71, 111, 118, 384/1086/540, 469, 1503/1680 648 and 1625. It has been very interesting to see all of these teams sliding around the field. These drivetrains are very good but they require some very skilled drivers to operate.

384, 1086, and 540 (the West Henrico Triad) actually used Mecanum, not crab.
With a few exceptions (111 @ MWR, 540 @ VCU, 175 @ BAE, and probably a couple others), the traditional "tank steering" drive has won every event. Although, this may be (at least in part) a bi-product of the vastly higher quantity of these drives.

[sdcantrell56]

Im a little confused about the post about omnis at Peachtree. Yes teams used omnis but not in an actual omni drive they were only used as casters more or less to allow for easier turning.

[Adamskiy]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

Im a little confused about the post about omnis at Peachtree. Yes teams used omnis but not in an actual omni drive they were only used as casters more or less to allow for easier turning.

Yeah, all of the omni wheels I saw were just used to aid turning, like we used. There was one crab drive (1057), and one robot had mecanum wheels (I forget the number) with independent suspension. Other than that, though, I think all other robots were 4- or 6-wheel tank drives.

[Brian J. R.]

We used the 2 omni 2 traction wheel method like other teams. With 2 motors to a transmition (having 2 transmitions, so a motor per wheel essentially) we had plenty of pushing power and speed which made it easy for us to defend or score. Even though it gave us the power and speed we needed, it wasn't enough aginst an all traction drive system (that wasn't pretty....)

Brian Richards, 1983 Mechanic