We just finished hooking up pneumatics. Electronics aren’t hooked up at the moment (they had to be taken off to work on) but it has driven around, and the CG is almost perfect.
Might that fiber glass frame idea be borrowed from any other Arizona teams? 
In all seriousness, looks good. I look forward to seeing it up close in about a month (or a week, are you guys coming to Duel in the Desert?).
Yep, 842 got us hooked on it. It’s pretty awesome stuff! Although as far as I know our team is the only one to use I-beams as part of the chassis (which is kind of ironic; we didn’t order I-beam on purpose, the team member who put the order together messed up!).
I think it has a bit more work left to be done than everyone expects. We have to let the programers loose with it and also make sure everything will be able to withstand competition use.
Maybe we will be attending. It all depends on the completeness by the middle of the week.
Looks nice but may I ask. Why did so many teams choose to go with 6 wheels this year?
6 wheel drive with an offset center wheel reduces the scrub forces when you are turning, making it smoother and reducing the amount of current draw. You can accomplish the same thing with omni wheels in the front or back but that makes it very easy to push you when you are trying to score. 6 wheel gives you good traction and good mobility.
6wd is good for going up ramps. This year, for the first time in FIRST, ramps will be of variable size, angle, and surface material. Ramp climbers need to be ready.
Andy B.
Speak for yourself, our team is running 4WD for the first time. EVER. And 240 is over a decade old. The Bane of other Bots is apparently good for running it, as it hasn’t eaten itself yet.
6wd is great, so is four… but lets not forget that AndyMark was backordered for over a week on the mecanum wheels at the beginning of build.
I suspect this year will see more omni-drives than ever before… and YES, the AM mecanums running 12:1 direct drive off the Banebots can climb a 20 degree ramp. Not as quickly or easily as a 6wd… and they need a bit more ground clearance… but we’ve built a ramp and tried it with ours.
I don’t want to get in a pushing match with the robot in this picture, though.
Jason
Our drive train this year makes up for our pathetic attempt last year. We ended up with two wheel drive with (poorly put together) exploding ifi wheels and stripped dewalt transmissions. This year I think the team decided to actually get this part of the robot done properly.
