Rover wheels on carpet?

[Alex Cormier]

In your post it says wood and carpet. Which is the surface that you will be driving on? The team that I was helping out last year drove their robot on a wood surface, it left a lot of marks. I do not recommend it. If your surface is carpet, go out enjoy and see what the robot does, it should be a fun time.

#4. Find time to change the wheels? (also includes removing and mounting sprockets and tensioning chain)(then prevents us from playing Lunacy in the future)

Is there an upcoming Lunacy off-season competition?

[gorrilla]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

In your post it says wood and carpet. Which is the surface that you will be driving on? The team that I was helping out last year drove their robot on a wood surface, it left a lot of marks. I do not recommend it. If your surface is carpet, go out enjoy and see what the robot does, it should be a fun time.



Is there an upcoming Lunacy off-season competition?

the stage has a wooden frame with carpet on top.
And not that I know of, I was just saying...


Eric: the reason I did not mention bringing regolith is we ony have 2 sheets, since we will be letting other people drive the robot it would be nearly pointless(imho) to try and tell a person who has never driven the robot before to try and stay on them. we dont have any tread laying around either.

I'll test the robot on some carpet on Thursday, and if we have a problem, I'll probably go with the duct-tape...
we were just assuming there would be a problem.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by gorrilla

#4. Find time to change the wheels? (also includes removing and mounting sprockets and tensioning chain)(then prevents us from playing Lunacy in the future)

Shouldn't take much longer than ~45mins tops, and it's perfectly reversible.

Though I just suggest protecting all open connections. It's a bad idea to have things exposed regardless of static risk. Attack everything with a roll of electrical tape; insulate mounting screws and such. It's impossible for static electricity to effect something it can't get to.

[Teched3]

You might also try fastening a traction material layer over the rover wheels to prevent slippage. Your robot will likely drive differently. Are there any other FIRST teams in the area that you could borrow additional Regolith from to increase your driving surface area?

[fsgond]

We had a lo of problems with static, we used a drag wire and it worked perfectly. It will most likely not leave any more marks than the wheels themselves.

[adamdb]

Put some fabric softener in a spray bottle and spray it all over the carpet. We do this frequently in our office and at trade shows where enough static would build up from a person walking to cause a laptop to reboot when they touched it.

[Jon Stratis]

Way, way back (almost a year ago, now!) we had our initial rolling chassis outfitted for testing with the rover wheels. The programming team was out in the carpeted hallway doing a little driving to make sure everything was working fine... As they drove down and back, you could literally see the static electric discharges traveling between the robot and the wall (where, i assume, they used those hollow metal studs instead of 2x4's - at least, that's what they used when they renovated our build space the past few months).

The above results make sense... Think about shuffling your feet over carpet during the winter, then touching a door knob - you get a shock. Do the same thing on a hard wood floor, you don't (or at least, not as much). Carpet is GREAT for creating static electricity, which is a huge drawback here.

I would suggest changing the wheels - it really doesn't take too long, and would be a lot safer than any other option.

[gorrilla]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Shouldn't take much longer than ~45mins tops, and it's perfectly reversible.

Though I just suggest protecting all open connections. It's a bad idea to have things exposed regardless of static risk. Attack everything with a roll of electrical tape; insulate mounting screws and such. It's impossible for static electricity to effect something it can't get to.

I'll do that too.