Team 1535 Knights of Alloy Nearly complete robot!

[boonski]

This is team 1535's nearly completed robot. Just a few things left to do and we are finished!

[jimbot]

Looks great! But how good of control do you have with those casters in front of your drive wheels. We have always been worried about casters.

[boonski]

Originally Posted by jimbot

Looks great! But how good of control do you have with those casters in front of your drive wheels. We have always been worried about casters.

The steering is very 'touchy' at the moment, but we are adapting a steering wheel controller (like in the racing video games) and hope that programming will take care of the 'touchy' drive problem.

[DarkFlame145]

i would of recommended ball casters

[swordothespirit]

If our old team leader were reading this she would be yelling at you through the computer. Believe a team who found this out the hard way, do not use caster wheels.

[Tom Line]

We are just going through this right now. Your steering is going to be hellish. Put traction wheels on the rear of that robot.

[muffinxo]

haha omg!! Thank you guys for saying that...

When our team was making the decision for the casters.. I was totally against it! But, my vote was not part of majority... now that we have the bot going they see how HARD it is to control it!

I really hope they switch it up

ps. thanks for the commentss.. love that you guys input so honestly <3

[thefro526]

Lol we found out a while ago, like 3+ years ago, that caster were absolutely horrid on the drive my suggestion would be to use some kind of an omni wheel or maybe ball casters. The main issue with normal ball casters is that they tend to steer the robot in the wrong direction initially and then they straighten out

[DarkFlame145]

Originally Posted by thefro526

Lol we found out a while ago, like 3+ years ago, that caster were absolutely horrid on the drive my suggestion would be to use some kind of an omni wheel or maybe ball casters. The main issue with normal ball casters is that they tend to steer the robot in the wrong direction initially and then they straighten out

We never have probs with them.

[muffinxo]

lol... what a nightmare

You guys are saying they are hell.. but my team is all about them... or was.

They were so excited to be able to turn a corner at like 200km/h (exaggeration) and like do unstoppable donuts with the bot... but now that we're competition savy it's not working out... we'll see.

I'll keep you guys posted on how everything goes!

[thefro526]

lol maybe your drive was better than ours, we've only prototyped with them anyway.

[muffinxo]

Our have spring loaded casters so there are only ever 4 wheels on teh ground as opposed to 6 and also so it'll give a little instead of tipping around the corners... etc. I don't know if that helps it any... I'm totally not the person to be contributing to this conversation

[thefro526]

hmm spring loaded casters... sounds kinda cool, they may help cornering or they may lean so much that the bot flips over

[muffinxo]

The bot doesn't flip at all... but that isn't to say it won't while on the field carrying a ball around at high speeds... but yeahh so far so good

[thefro526]

Yeah the center of gravity looks very low, what motor are you using on the arm?