pic: Final 2011 Drivetrain

[SirTasty]

um... wow... where to begin...

Brace yourself, this post is going to be extremely critical, but you will thank me for it later. Take it from a four-year FRC team member and a design/strategy specialist, there are like nine thousand and one problems with this drive train that will make it all but unusable on the field. I'll start with your bullet points.

Originally Posted by poohbear

-the body is milled from a solid block of 7071 aluminum (with our sponsor's five axis mill) to retain the maximum structural strength.

This is almost definitely outside of the budget allowed within the rules and is also a huge waste of money and resources. Frankly, I am a bit dumbstruck that your sponsor is willing to commit their five-axis mill to this kind of project.

Originally Posted by poohbear

-the wheels are decagons instead of circles. NOW can we squeeze in more than tangential contact every tenth of a rotation, therefore we get more traction.

I have no concrete criticism of this one, but suffice it to say that I am extremely skeptical. Wheels are circular for a reason, if decagons worked better, some automotive specialist would have noticed in the last hundred years or so. Of course, robots are not cars, so if you really think you've hit on something here, I would create a prototype to see what happens, but I am 99% certain that this will not be effective. I think the most likely result is your motor does not have enough torque to turn the wheel.

Originally Posted by poohbear

-the wheel formation allows for no "getting pushed around" and great defense. We might be the rookies, but thanks to our ingenuity, we're not going to get bullied on the field

Are you referring to the 45 degree angle "holomonic" wheel configuration? Every year we see a team try this. Traditionally it's done with omni wheels, but I've seen it done with regular traction wheels. It never works. The traction from the "front" and "back" wheels gets in the way of the "side" wheels, and all you can do is spin. You can use omnis to fix this, but you end up with no traction. If you want omnidirectional steering, take four hundred bucks you would spend on that aluminum block and invest them in a good set of mecanum wheels instead. Better yet, if you have access to the kind of machine shop that lets you use a five-axis mill, you probably have the ability to make a legitimate swerve drive. Or, since you're a rookie team, you could go with a traditional four-wheel or six-wheel drive. Anything but this mess.

Originally Posted by poohbear

-these four wheels are directly driven by CIMs so we can zip across the field at 154 fps according to JVN Design Calculator (great tool by the way guys).

Either you missed a decimal point (or two?) or you're doing something very wrong. This number is completely ridiculous, throw it out (btw, I rolled on the floor laughing when I read the comment about the Picard maneuver). Seriously. The most likely result is your motors stall from not being able to rotate your (decagonal) wheels. Particularly without gearboxes. Seriously, get some gearboxes.

Originally Posted by poohbear

-the bot fits in a 26x26 square. its octagonal shape allows for surface area for electronics.

No problem here, moving on.

Originally Posted by poohbear

I know its pretty good, but what are some design tips you veteran teams might want to bestow upon us?

Here's a tip: don't try anything crazy in your first year. Innovation rocks, but if there's a traditional way of doing something, the reason "everyone else is doing it" is because it works. Learn from historical teams' mistakes, not your own. One should never be afraid to depart from the norm, but should never do it without careful thought (which clearly wasn't given here). You have to really understand the rules before you know how to break them.

Of course, there's a chance that you'll just ignore me, in which case I hope I don't end up on an alliance with you. Just remember that Dolan from 2374 warned you.

Anyway, that whole post was very rude (inb4 "you're trampling creativity"), but you really needed to hear that before you wasted all of that time and money. Now you're out a third of your build season, it's time to think about reprioritizing.