pic: The 2007 Team 703 Phoenix Robot

[Nikhil Bajaj]

I have always liked 703's drive train and design sensibilities in general...keep up the good work! I was trying to get 461 to use carbon fiber/nomex panel for the ramps but it didn't work out.

What is the "sandwiched" material in your panels? Nomex? Aluminum? Something else?

[cbale2000]

Thanks, we're very proud of our drive train this year. Our goal was to fix the issues we had had with our tracks breaking in previous years robots, so instead of dealing with all the belts, we just came up with this. It simulates many of the advantages of a tread system and adds the reliability of gears and wheels.

We used Divinycell foam for the sandwiched material as it had much more compression strength than typical Styrofoam but was still very lightweight.

[EricH]

That bottom left one better have the ramps slightly out of starting position, or you've got some work at your first event. (If the ramp on the right is in the box, that's an awfully small robot.)

How do you deploy the ramps? Did you keep the arm (I can't see it in the bottom two pictures)?

[ChrisMcK2186]

Are your wheels in a gentle "U" shape? My team is trying to perfect our drive train for next year so we are looking around. Would you recomend this?

Chris

[Grant Cox]

sup defensive POWERHOUSE haha. I really enojoyed getting pushed around the rack by that at Detroit

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by EricH

That bottom left one better have the ramps slightly out of starting position, or you've got some work at your first event. (If the ramp on the right is in the box, that's an awfully small robot.)

How do you deploy the ramps? Did you keep the arm (I can't see it in the bottom two pictures)?

Yeh, we solved that problem by pulling the ramps in so they fit square inside the starting configuration, We just didn't have the cables attached in that picture.


The ramps get deployed by being retracted up and to the center of the robot by our winch system to a point where they are no longer restricted by the bumpers, our spring hinges then take care of popping them out and we then reverse the winch to allow them to slide out.


It isn't the fastest process (takes about 5-7 seconds to deploy fully) and we had a few issues with it in Detroit which we believe we have addressed (deploying early, getting stuck, ect.).


We did not attach the arm in Detroit, we knew we had to make an new mast for it after we shipped it in order to make weight at the regionals and because the gearing needed to be ajusted, we just never got the time to attach the new mast in Detroit due to all the troubleshooting we did with the ramps.
I'm hoping we can get it on for West Michigan, if not, expect to see it at least once or twice at Nationals.

Originally Posted by ChrisMcK2186

Are your wheels in a gentle "U" shape? My team is trying to perfect our drive train for next year so we are looking around. Would you recomend this?

Chris

Yes, the whole thing is actually in a huge ark. I couldn't tell you the angle right off hand, but its REALLY big. The best part is that the whole thing turns smoothly on a dime!