pic: Team 357's 2006 MIT InvenTeam

[Joe Troy]

loading photo ...

[Greg Marra]

It looks like the user interface is a single joystick on the right arm of the chair. May I ask how you are using that to control the drive? forwards/backwards and left/right seem easy enough with a single stick, but how are you handling rotation? This is one of the problems with a complicated drive system on FRC robots, and I would love to hear how you approached it on your wheelchair.

Nice work guys, it looks really awesome.

[Rohith Surampudi]

Wow, thats awesome

ditto on the rotation question

[Joe Matt]

Looks very nice guys. I'm guessing this is still a prototype. Will we ever see it at the competitions? I'd love to give it a test ride!

[Greg Perkins]

I'm assuming its a left/right front/back joystick with the stick being able to twist. Looks AWESOME

[Rosiebotboss]

Nice job.......I can't wait to see it Thursday in Cambridge. When I heard from your teacher in October that you were a FIRST team and what your project was, I knew you would be able to pull it off. (Plus Josh told me you did a fine job when he was a Judge for me at Beantown Blitz.)Such a complicated system but relatively easy for an experienced FIRST team.

Are you presenting Thursday or Friday? I can only attend Thursday pm.

[OldDaddyCrane]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Nice job.......I can't wait to see it Thursday in Cambridge. When I heard from your teacher in October that you were a FIRST team and what your project was, I knew you would be able to pull it off. (Plus Josh told me you did a fine job when he was a Judge for me at Beantown Blitz.)Such a complicated system but relatively easy for an experienced FIRST team.

Are you presenting Thursday or Friday? I can only attend Thursday pm.

We will be presenting on Thursday at 2:15PM. All are welcome!

[JulieB]

Originally Posted by Greg Perkins

I'm assuming its a left/right front/back joystick with the stick being able to twist. Looks AWESOME

On my aunts wheelchair this how it works. The joystick works real well when turning and handles real nice.

[jester_assault]

Actually, what you cannot see in this picture is that we have replaced the standard 2-axis joystick on the chair with a 3-axis one, which gives us the rotational movement.

[ZZII 527]

Awesome! I'll be there Thursday to check it out.

[mizscience]

Wow, good job guys. Do you happen to have a video of it in action?

[sanddrag]

Looks like a right angle drive on the motors. Are they worm gear drives or bevel gear drives? Are they stock off the shelf wheelchair motors? What size/quantity of batteries do you have? With 4 motors how is battery life?

[Joe Troy]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Looks like a right angle drive on the motors. Are they worm gear drives or bevel gear drives? Are they stock off the shelf wheelchair motors? What size/quantity of batteries do you have? With 4 motors how is battery life?

The motors are equipped with right angle drives...the gear boxes have helical gear sets. The motors are a standard 24v wheelchair motor. We are using two 12v SLAs to provide the 24 volts required by the motors. Battery life is surprisingly good for a four wheel drive wheelchair.

We are currently at MIT as part of a two day exhibition by the Lemelson MIT InvenTeams. When we return from MIT we will be posting pictures, video and detailed specs for the Jester drive wheelchair.

[DB_UPS]

Its nice to see it come from robot to kick butt chair!!

[Dan Petrovic]

That's pretty sweet!

Did you guys make those Mecanums or did you buy them?

If you bought them can you give a link as where we could them?