Tetrix Kit Possibilities

[Tassemet]

Hello all,

I was in FTC quite a few years ago, and have since been out of highschool about a year. In that year, I joined the Navy and learned a lot more about what we did electrically and physically with our robot that we never even thought about.

Going along those lines, I've bought the stuff to build with the tetrix kit just for fun here where i'm stationed and have fun with my shipmates.

During one suggestion on what to build, someone mentioned a helicopter, or some sort of flying object. In your opinions, do you believe the tetrix kit holds the possibility to make a well designed 'bot (and I mean well designed bot) fly with either a single (apache) or double rotor (chinook) design? Maybe not move around, but hover and look cool?

From what i've seen and read, the only main concern would be weight, and whether the motor or motors could spin a set of rotor or rotors with enough force and speed to pick the thing up off the ground.

And to this point, has anyone tried such a feat? If not, I still want to build things here and make some posts and videos as I go along just to try and see if I can make some magic happen.

Very Respectually,
Tassemet

[Hawiian Cadder]

I think that you could make a hovercraft without too much issue, i don't think that you could make a flying robot, maybe you could do it if you took ALL the weight of everything, but even then, i don't think that it is possible.

[Tassemet]

Also, seeing as how the kit is mine, i'm not worried about it being FTC legal. I have no problems overdriving motors a bit with more voltage then the stock battery pack comes with, or other modifications to gain power/weight advantages.

[Hawiian Cadder]

you will need to take off the integrated gearboxes on the motors. but beyond that there is not much extra performance that you can gain. the primary problem is the lack of a lightweight control system. if you used a different control system it might be possible, but still very difficult. the battery is also very heavy, and lighter batteries may not be able to power the robot for very long.

[Techhexium]

Well, the structural elements are made of Aluminum so it's possible.

Also, if you remove the gearbox from the motors, the motors will spin significantly faster than the 153 rpm indicated by the sticker on the motor.

If you didn't know, FIRST had its Aerial Robotics Demonstration (CARD) pilot in St. Louis during the championship, you may be able to find some videos in Youtube about that.

[Tassemet]

Originally Posted by Techhexium

Well, the structural elements are made of Aluminum so it's possible.

Also, if you remove the gearbox from the motors, the motors will spin significantly faster than the 153 rpm indicated by the sticker on the motor.

One thing though, higher speed also means less torque. At least if what i read about the motors are right from another post on here. It seems max output achieved is around 11.81 kg/cm@76.1 RPM and for max efficiency (which is slightly under max output) 9.77 kg/cm@88RPM

[Hawiian Cadder]

I think that it might be possible to build a flying robot, with FTC, but in the end there would be so few originally heavy ftc parts left that you might as well build it from scratch.

[Tassemet]

To be completely honest, we're doing this as a proof of concept deal with this kit. If it can do it, cool. If not, oh well.

We're that itching to apply what we've learned at school here, and that bored here between school and taking care of our duties as military forces that we want to try something completely crazy and potentially impossible just to do it.

[PayneTrain]

Given my experience with Tetrix, you might as well buy a dozen motors and save yourself from the grief of waiting for new ones... XD

[Tassemet]

Thanks for the advice, but I don't think i'll be burning out motors by rotating rotors.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Tassemet

Thanks for the advice, but I don't think i'll be burning out motors by rotating rotors.

FRC teams blew out quite a few FTC motors in the minibot competition. High rotational speed, light(ish) load. There's an inductor that's apparently quite susceptible to blowing out under some load. Whether or not spinning a rotor will do that, I'm not sure.

[Chris is me]

Stall that motor for more than 2 seconds and you're blowing that inductor.