which kind of mobility is every1 thinking of. a good idea that came up today while we were brainstorming was a tank mobility any other ideas??
tank treads are WAYYYYY too slow for this game. you gotta go with 4 wheel tank drive. relatively good speed and good push power and easy to do, especially for a rookie team.
Typical answer but not always the truth. You can get high speeds with treads if you have the proper gear ratio. I recall team 61 (i think) moving with great speeds in 04 competition and team 180’s old tread system to be very powerful. But be sure to do the engineering before the season starts, or you might run out of time like our team did in 03 and had some serious engineering flaws that we found out on the first day of competition.
We are going 6x6 for this years game…
ya, i agree, but if its your rookie year treads are too complicated. lots to go wrong, shreading treads, loss of limbs, lots of moving parts(if one fails all the rest can). i mean its just best to keep it simple for your first year, dont go for the gold right away, learn it, then conquer it.
Just like last year, team 1318 is going to use a 6-wheel drive system. It worked well then, it should work well now.
However, this year we’ll probably use pneumatic tires to get more tread on the diamond plating, instead of the kitbot ones like last year.
You’ll want to consider that very, very carefully.
we were thinking of using a diamond shaped base with a tank drive that would be centered in the middle of the diamond. this way it’d be harder for people to push us because to get maximum area they would have to hit a slanted side which we could still keep driving forward than, however first my frown on the idea that the corner would be in the front of our robot and thus creating a spear like robot
You can’t make diamond shaped sides anymore, they have to be within 10 degrees of vertical as the rules state here
<R04> "Wedge” robots are not allowed. Robots must be designed so that interaction with other robots results in
pushing rather than tipping or lifting. Neither offensive nor defensive wedges are allowed. All parts of a
robot between 0 and 8.5 inches from the ground (the top of the bumper zone – see Rule <R35>) that might
push against another robot must be within 10 degrees of vertical. Devices deployed outside the robot’s
footprint should be designed to avoid wedging. If a mechanism or an appendage (a ball harvester, for
example) becomes a wedge that interferes with other robots, penalties, disabling, or disqualification can occur
depending on the severity of the infraction.
I believe that the rule is refereeing to the sides of your robot. So that you cannot tip another bot. I do not believe that there is any restriction to the actual shape the bot looking down at it. I dont know if that made any sense to any of you all but it did to me…
it all depends on your robot and what roles you want to play on the field. A holonomic or mechanum drive system is going to have problems with the ramp unless you create some sort of suspension, although they will be the most agile and mobile in the open field.
A tank drive will have tons of traction, and be awesome for the ramp/platform, but it may not possess the maneuverability to an omni-drive in certain situations in the open field, or chase bouncing balls.
Swerve drive may be a nice solution to these problems, but those can be fairly hard to build.
There are many many other factors that tie into this, what kind of ball shooting are you employing, will you shoot on the move, will you shoot at all, etc etc etc
This game needs both speed and power. So you need to come up with a drive system that maximizes both. though accuracy is needed somewhat if your planning on manually aiming to shoot.
Our team, 1257 had a fully fuctional holonomic drive last year. It was quickly decided that its not a good choice for this game. Defensivly, the only thing to do other then stand in front of the lower goal is to ram like hell, and you just dont get any traction with the omniwheels. Also lets just say there isnt a chance in hell of a holonomic drivetrain making it up that ramp.
do you need me to show you video’s? they are not slow so don’t say they are… I will show you video’s of how fast and how POWERFULL they are
2004 Mayhem on the Merrimack Fastest Robot Award!
But remember tank treads are slow… Time for you to get your facts straight 
Yes… Just look at my signature… Won a lot of compitions this year…
tank treads are def not slow, but honestly there is no need for them in this years game. Theres no terrian obstacles other then the 30 degree ramp which shouldnt be a problem to get up. i would go 6 wheel drive and just chain the wheels
defense? yeah that’s why you need them to push other robots around from scoring.
ya you get just as much traction with the pneumatic wheels with those big CIMs it wont be necessary to use tank treads and if any team is smart they will use a pneumatic brakepad system to hold their ground while shooting at the center goal
I’ll bite. This year’s game will not be friendly to omni wheel drives (unless you can shoot extremely accurately on the fly). It will also not be friendly to tank treads, although I am not sure that is what you meant. Tank does not mean tank treads you guys. It could mean a skid steer system, which would be good, unless you want to go ramp climbing. Although after last year and 116’s incredibly wicked sweet drive, I’m sure you can think of something cool.
Im not saying it wont be friendly to tank treads im just saying it wont be neccessary your better off going witha 6 wheel pneumatic tire drive train, that ramp isnt going to be to hard to get on. other then that its all about speed, traction, and movability. A functional holonomic drive train is fast as h*** and nice manevability if you practicle driveing but if u get pushed you got zero traction, we even replaced the wheels and added tire treds we literally glued on with some industrial glue the traction increased but if you get pushed you slide.
it is possible for a crab drive or an omni drive to get up the ramp with the help of another robot. There will be plenty of tankbots that can push them ramp, just make those wheel/motor assemblies strong.
I think a crab could get up in its own but an omni would need the assistance of a dropdown high traction roller of some sort.
I think a crab is perfect for the game, but I don’t think my team wants to go that way.