15-03-2009 21:39

115inventorsam

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

Quite an impressive robot. I certainly can't wait to see it in person at Davis.

15-03-2009 22:08

roboticWanderor

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

one of my favorite teams, beautifully designed robot. i really like the power chain going to the hood.

16-03-2009 14:09

GabeRC1717

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

Thank you, we found the energy chain to be a very clean and effective wiring solution for our turret.

16-03-2009 16:49

roboticWanderor

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

along with the energy chain, what reason(s) did ya'll use toothed belts throughout your robot? and what design elements did you have to change to work with or around them? I noticed there is an idler wheel on every length of belt, is this what tensions the belt? could you have gone with thinner and less bulky belts in some places?

16-03-2009 17:09

LBseale

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

In the past we have used chains exclusively, but have grown tired of the pain of tensioning them. You can tension a chain when you put it on, but it stretches out and you have to retension it. Not having an elegant solution to this problem that we could design for, we decided to try belts this season.

The belts turned out to be a great idea. They never change in length, which is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that, once they are in, you never have to touch them again. The curse is that it can be difficult to get the right spacing between pulleys. This problem was easily solved for us by Solidworks' belt feature, which allows you to find out the distance between pulleys given a fixed belth length. Using this, we could use belts on the whole robot.

The idler wheels on the drivetrain are indeed for tensioning, and they serve to give the belt more surface contact with the drive pulleys for a more robust system. The ones on top give the turret a greater range of motion, since the belt is just riveted to the lazy susan.

I guess we could have gone with thinner belts, but they wouldn't have been as strong. We chose this pitch type because it allowed us to make the spacing in the wheel module as tight as possible, then used it throughout the robot.

In the end, never having to break and tension chain has been great. The computer modeling makes using more modern power transmission much easier. This is also the quietest robot we have ever built, without the clank and clatter of metal chain on metal sprockets.

16-03-2009 17:29

sdcantrell56

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

Can you tell me what pitch belt you went with? Also would you use belts in a 2 speed drivetrain with high traction wheels?

16-03-2009 19:45

LBseale

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

We used 5mm HTD belts. Yes, I think we would try to figure out a 2 speed belt transmission in a regular game. It sounds pretty crazy to me, but if we could figure out this drivetrain, I'm sure we could do it.

16-03-2009 20:12

sdcantrell56

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

Where did you buy the 5mm belts? I am looking and sdp-si does not sell them. I am putting the finishing touches on a wooden framed 6wd high traction 2 speed, belt driven drivetrain. Right now I am looking at polycarb XL pullies and XL timing belt.

I was really asking would you use belt instead of #25 chain in a 6wd drivetrain with 2 speed transmissions and high traction wheels?

16-03-2009 20:33

LBseale

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

We got our belts and pulleys from our friend the BBman.
http://www.bbman.com/index.html

I think we would use belts, since we like how easy and quiet they are, but I'm not sure. That will be up to next year's team.

It looks like we both got into Looking Forward's post. 17** ftw.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=75906

16-03-2009 20:52

sdcantrell56

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

Thank you so much. That looks like a great store and we will probably order parts from them in the future.

I saw the Looking Forward post. I'm so excited that we have received so much notoriety but I wish we would have earned a spot to the Championship. There's just so much luck involved in this game, and this year even more than ever.

I would be really curious to see which one of our bots would win head to head. You have the killer swerve, but we have the dual fans...hmmm. I think we need to have a competition.

After watching your video its crazy how similar our robots are. I think we should just build together. HAHA

16-03-2009 21:38

BurtGummer

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

Hey 1717, first off I love your robot......It impressed me the most at the LA Regional, and I had the honor to be allianced with you guys.....and the curse of also being allianced against you, haha.

What drive/steering system are you guys using? The control looks REALLY nice and it has a 'creepy' glide factor to it when in operation.

Also, what happened at the last match with your turret? It looked to me as if the computer went insane.

Will you guys be going to any other regionals? If so, good luck, and we hope to see you at Atlanta! (providing we get our funding....)

16-03-2009 21:54

GabeRC1717

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

We have a swerve drive system where all of the wheels rotate, two left wheels and two right wheels rotate and drive together. The control is vector drive, where the joystick is angle and magnitude, the driver also has a traditional skid steer input. This combined with our traction control gives very good control.

In our last match we sustained a very large impact, and it caused the power connector to our analog breakout to come lose, disabling our robot.

We will be at Davis next weekend, thank you and we hope to see you in Atlanta as well!

16-03-2009 21:59

Uberbots

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

That is one sexy robot. It looks like you guys put a lot of effort into organizing the various systems of the bot so they work fluently together and in a very efficient and lightweight manner. IMO that robot looks worthy of a design award. go 1717!


(pardon my ignorance, but were you the guys with the vacuum bot last year? or was that 1771? so many 1's and 7's )

16-03-2009 22:01

Drwurm

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

1717 had an incredibly effective, yet simplistic, lift-bot last year, not a vacuum bot. There should be shots of it floating around.

16-03-2009 22:02

sdcantrell56

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

We had the vacuum bot last year (1771) This year both us and 1717 have very similar robots and from what I have seen both are devastatingly effective. It seems that teams with 1's and 7's build great robots.

17-03-2009 00:07

TheOtherGuy

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

1717: I'm inspired! It was a blast working against you at LA, though I would have liked to have driven with you guys for at least one match We knew instantly that a hood would work wonders once we saw you pummel goals mercilessly at point blank; perhaps we're prepared for AZ now?

Anyway, great robot, great team, you guys are awesome!

01-04-2009 01:06

roboticWanderor

Re: pic: 1717 in the Finals

might I also mention that teams such as 624, 1114, 1902, and 217, all have similar designs: wide robots with amazing turrets and a large hopper, that have also all won at least one regional this year.