pic: Schreiber Take on West Coast Drive

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I think I speak for any mentor when I say that I would rather see that you guys figured out how to properly calculate what sort of reduction you need rather than see that you figured out how to click the "make it pretty" button.

Nice render. I find it very hard to believe that you didn't click the "make it pretty button."

[Zach O]

Snarky. Although I am a fan of what your showing. We need to stop relying so much on computers to do all the work for us, and knowing how to do it by hand is always a good skill. However, technology is the future. The reason we have these things is so that we don't have to do it by hand anymore. We can have machines do stress analysis for us, saving us time of going though it by hand. However, the skill of calculating things by hand and sketching by hand is something that we should continue to teach the youth (until my netbook can run Inventor )

[kstl99]

Originally Posted by Zach O

technology is the future. The reason we have these things is so that we don't have to do it by hand anymore. We can have machines do stress analysis for us, saving us time of going though it by hand. However, the skill of calculating things by hand and sketching by hand is something that we should continue to teach the youth (until my netbook can run Inventor )

I have two thoughts on the value of being able to at least estimate without CAD.

It is very easy to make silly mistakes while using CAD that cause results to be way off. It is quite useful to be able to recognize when things don't make sense.

It is also handy to be able to come up with sensible ideas quickly at the beginning of the build season or of a project at work when many decisions are made without the time to do the CAD.

[Chris is me]

The funny thing here is that while you're preaching to us how doing the math is better than a pretty render, I think your drivetrain won't perform adequately with the gearing you've outlined. 10 fps with 4 CIMs isn't the best acceleration, and you are nowhere close to traction limited. Pushing matches will probably trip your breaker faster than I would be comfortable with. Your gearing would probably eat through batteries faster than I would want as well. You could increase your reduction a bit to become traction limited at much more feasible currents, while increasing your acceleration enough to virtually make up for the speed loss in a Breakaway like field.

This is assuming you bring your robot to full weight. At the 27 pounds pictured, I bet you would have zero problems.

[MrForbes]

Chris, the two speed sketch is on the reverse side of the napkin, you can't see it

I like to move straight from NCAD to MAC machining (manual analog control)

[CENTURION]

Hahaha I usually end up doing pages and pages of sketches before even presenting an idea to my team ( I have too much free time at school )

Half of them end up being junk of course, and I can't do any of those kinds of advanced calculations (Yet), but my study hall time usually yields some pretty crazy stuff. and then if I like it enough, I'll do a quick Google Sketchup model or something on my laptop (I'm still learning "real" CAD, but have gotten quite proficient with Sketchup)

Over the past year that I've been on the team, I've been trying to get other students do do more sketches, it seems they just want to wing it, and build as they go

[roboticWanderor]

you should see my sketch books from FIRST, i had more pages of gear calculations, BOMs, and math than i did sketches of actual parts. i ended up sketching out my gearboxes with a compass before i even touched solidworks.
HOWEVER.....
using SW to put hard numbers on your designs, and figure out the nitty gritty is much more work than the napkin sketches you use to jot down ideas. to go from sketch to product (especially in real world engineering) takes a lot more professionalism, thoroughness, and precision than a napkin can provide.

BOTH the innovation for a elegant design and the know-how to make it work are required to make ideas reality. Otherwise your just a drafter or a dreamer