222’s gum rubber wheels were kept a mystery… until now. Behold my fellow CDers , 222’s wonderful wheels
They never have really been kept secret. The material we used got leaked out on here early in the build season. Ever since we started going to regionals we have been telling many people about our wheels. Anyone was more than welcome to come see them… This material is great stuff!!
… Cool!
- Katie
*Originally posted by Katie Reynolds *
**… Cool!
- Katie **
I Would Have To Agree
COOL!
*Originally posted by team222badbrad *
**They never have really been kept secret. The material we used got leaked out on here early in the build season. Ever since we started going to regionals we have been telling many people about our wheels. Anyone was more than welcome to come see them… This material is great stuff!! **
Certain people on your team told me that they were kept a secret. I only went on what they told me.
Is that Neoprene Rubber?
Neoprene rubber would be the best for traction. Between that and EDPM Rubber
Nope Much better than that kind of rubber…
This stuff is pure Gum Rubber works great on all field surfaces except when your trying to push a robot up the ramp of course!!
*Originally posted by team222badbrad *
Nope Much better than that kind of rubber…
I find that hard to imagine. EDPM rubber has a coefficient of friction of 3 on most surfaces, including Steel (not unlike that of the ramp). Then again, nobody can tell which is best because neither of us have tested them both.
I’m surprised nobody as 3M as a sponsor. They would be ideal for these types of products. If anyone has 3M as a sponsor, they should do some tests with 3M Resilient Rollstock. They tout it as having a high coefficient of friction.
The problem with psuhing bots up the ramp is that our bot begins to hop and lose traction…In one case we even snapped a chain because of this. As far as the floor and the HDPE you will not find better traction!!!
Our robocup team has tested almost all the materials mentioned:
- Buta-N
- Neoprene
- Silicone
- EDPM
- Several others I can’t recall right now
We very recently found that Neoprene is the best for contact with a felt carpet. It’s about 23% better than the next-best alternative. We’ll be switching to Neoprene for our wheels; we used Buta-N in the past.
As for the pure gum rubber, we did not test that on carpet. However, I do have a sample of the material and from casual observations it should be comparable… However, it is less robust and more likely to break down.
- Patrick
we all that attended IRI are now very familiar with 222’s gum rubber wheels, right dave?
*Originally posted by patrickrd *
**However, it is less robust and more likely to break down.
- Patrick **
Patrick, at the beginning of the season we were concerned about breakdown and wear of our tires. Anyone who knows our team know that we have had just about the most matches of any team in FIRST with 3 regionals, nationals, and I think it was 6 mini competitions. We are still running the same set of tires. Just my $0.02 to let you know how we made out…
We actually found that after our wheels had wore down and degraded a bit it actually gave us a bit more garb on the carpet. They still work great the only maintinence that we ocasionally have to do is a good cleaning form time to time.
My design class this semester is designing a friction tester specifically for 4" to 10" diameter wheels. If we get a design which is worth a crap, we’ll build it and would gladly prepare a database of wheel coefficient of friction for a variety of tire materials and surface materials.
Even if the class designs are worthless, this is an important enough topic that I will probably put together a design over Xmas break.
If there is sufficient interest, we’ll be glad to post both the design drawings and the data on CD for all to share. Also, if anyone wants to supply a wheel for testing and is willing to share the data with the rest of the community, we will be glad to do the tests.
They had so much traction on the carpet that we were put up on 2 wheels either left or right side when garding a stack because they didn’t want to move… at all