Sheet Metal vs KitBot

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by lemiant

I just watched:

http://www.simbotics.org/media/video...itbot-steroids

They seem to be really advocating the KitBot in this video, yet 1114 themselves and most of the advanced teams build a sheet metal chassis. Which is better?

It's not about which is better, it's about which is better for your team. For a lot of FIRST teams, they have the resources (financial, material and experience) to build custom drivetrains that can be very lightweight, yet maintaining robustness and effectiveness. However, most FIRST teams don't have these resources. As such the kitbot can be a great solution for them.

The "kitbot on steroids" as we've coined it, is a simple drivetrain that be put together in a couple of days using just the KOP and a few additional COTS parts. When constructed properly, it's extremely robust and reliable, and far more effective than the average FIRST drivetrain. (At least based on what we've seen over the years.) The time and resources saved by building this drivetrain allow teams to focus on practicing, programming and of course the designing and building of other manipulators. For years it's frustrated our team to see so many teams with so much potential who end up with underperforming custom drivetrains, that could have been easily avoided. That's why we made this video and have been promoting it heavily. Look for us to publish improved documentation to go with it this fall.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Karthik

It's not about which is better, it's about which is better for your team.

One sentence and Karthik sums up about 75% of the "which is better" threads on CD. Talk about hitting the nail on the head!

Jason

[yarden.saa]

I just want to open your eyes to what can be done with the kit bot.
the chassis in the picture is my team's (3339) chassis which is built from the C channel. We drilled holes to the outer wheels shafts in the c channel.
This chassis worked very good without any problem!

[Rob Stehlik]

Originally Posted by yarden.saa

I just want to open your eyes to what can be done with the kit bot.
the chassis in the picture is my team's (3339) chassis which is built from the C channel. We drilled holes to the outer wheels shafts in the c channel.
This chassis worked very good without any problem!

Very cool! I really like this re-arrangement of the kit frame. Thanks for sharing.

[yarden.saa]

you can do what ever you want with the kit bot, you just need to think out of the box

[JVN]

Here is the Robowranger 2011 "custom sheetmetal" chassis:


It probably looks familiar.

Custom sheetmetal? Yes.
Reinventing the wheel? No.

2005 Kitbot FTW!

[sdcantrell56]

It looks like you were set up to run 6wd as well. Was that a contingency plan if the nonadrive didn't pan out or you were too close on weight?

Originally Posted by JVN

Here is the Robowranger 2011 "custom sheetmetal" chassis:


It probably looks familiar.

Custom sheetmetal? Yes.
Reinventing the wheel? No.

2005 Kitbot FTW!

[JVN]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

It looks like you were set up to run 6wd as well. Was that a contingency plan if the nonadrive didn't pan out or you were too close on weight?

I threw the tabs on for versatility reasons. We figured for the weight of 4 tabs we would now have the ability to switch to a 6WD if the game needed it.

We're very happy with our "Butterfly Drive" setup. We'd be happy to run this configuration again!

-John

[sdcantrell56]

That's what I figured. It's a really clean frame layout and your nona/butterfly/whatever-crazy-drive-next-year certainly inspired a ton of teams this season.

Originally Posted by JVN

I threw the tabs on for versatility reasons. We figured for the weight of 4 tabs we would now have the ability to switch to a 6WD if the game needed it.

We're very happy with our "Butterfly Drive" setup. We'd be happy to run this configuration again!

-John