What drivetrain did you do?

[Ty Tremblay]

I know that, in the beginning of build season, our team was debating on which would be more effective: agility, or speed and power. We also knew that this decision would determine our drivetrain decision. So, we'd like to know what you guys chose as well.

[AndyB]

Omni Front. Regular Back. All 4 Driven. Driven like skid steer.

[CarterM]

Originally Posted by AndyB

Omni Front. Regular Back. All 4 Driven. Driven like skid steer.

Same here! -It worked well last year...

[AndyB]

Hehe... kind of got the idea from you guys...

In fact Matt H. (student here at Platteville who used to be on your team) gave us a pretty good review about the AM Omni's you used. BTW, nice drive this year... expanding chassis is pretty impressive.

[Billfred]

For us, it was Kitbot-derived 6WD. Combined with the AM Super Shifters, we think it'll be right nice.

[lukevanoort]

Like 1618, we are using a kitbot-derived 6WD with AM Shifters (Gen 2 Servos, in our case) geared to 13.3 and 5.3 ft/s. Unlike most kitbot-based 6WDs, ours has an adjustable centre wheel. We tried it coplanar, lowered 1/16", and lowered 1/8"; we found that we much preferred 1/8" to the other ones. Coplanar could not turn at all in high gear (but was awesome to drive in low gear - I can see why 25 likes it), 1/16" was faster turning in low gear and could drive in arcs in high gear (ie. you had to move forward to turn), and 1/8" can turn in place in high gear, albeit a bit slowly. We are only running 1 chiaphua per side though; if we had two per side, I'd probably go with 1/16" or 3/32" lowered.

[SL8]

we are using tanksteer with the 2 back powered by two motors each. We did not even bother with DeWalts this year. We did not believe that we would be able to get much speed in this game do to traffic.

[Sam N.]

6 wheels. Center wheel is dropped down 1/4inch. Turns on a dime and can make nice U-turns.

"6-wheel rocker"

[Andrew Schuetze]

AM supershifter /w servo 2 CIMS per side.
Belt driven four wheel drive /w 6 inch x 1 inch IFI traction tires wedgetop tread.
Belt reduction 3:4 after the transmission

[Richard Wallace]

8WD live axle with AM SuperShifters and two CIMs. We're using 2008 AM FIRST kit-of-parts wheels and a 2-1/2" x 1-1/4" x 1/8" wall tubular aluminum welded chassis, with tensioners based on the prototype that Jabba-the-Hutt made for us in the off-season.

[JHSmentor]

6wd with center wheels direct driven by kit box Toughbox - 2 CIM's per side, front and rear corners are Omni's - no center wheel drop. 4 custom designed spring/sprocket tensioners. We've clocked it at 10f/s but the weight causes it to take a little while to hit that speed. I would have liked a lighter robot by 10-20 lbs but that wasn't going to happen.

[AJ R]

We went with an omni drive. 4 wheels on the 45 degree angles just like our vex robot from the Milwaukee vex league. It works really good, really fast and good maneuverability. The programmers did a great job getting it to drive strait.

[s_forbes]

We were seriously considering an Ackermann set up, but then our programers figured out how to make a 6wd robot drive like one, so we just built a 6wd bot.

We had fun designing it, too. We aimed for super simplicity: the frame is made of four lengths of c-channel, and the wheels sit on protruding bolts. Very light and easy to fix.

RWD (2 IFI 6x2 traction wheels) powered by 4 CIM's through toughboxes; Front steering (non-Ackermann, non-powered, kit wheels).

[Daniel_LaFleur]

4WD, skid steer, run by 4 Cims through Dewalt transmissions.