This is basically what the a cutout view of our transmission from this year would look like. I made this back in November (2002) with Andy Baker before the season started. The “dog” is the orange part and it’s linked to the shaft (yellow) that moves back and forth inside the other shaft (red). It enganges the gears on both sides (blue/green). This is very similar to our first year design except that the dog engages the actual gear instead of another dog that we added to the gear.
I was admiring the above picture of the TechnoKat Transmission 2003.
Can someone explain the light blue inserts in the green and dark-blue gears?
Also I gather that the purple and white pieces are bearings. Is there a reason for them being different colors?
Lastly, I gather that the orange piece connects either the green or dark-blue gear to the red shaft. Is that correct and if so, how does it connect to the red shaft?
The engaging system looks like their 2002 transmission. The engager is on a hex shaft and the gears on bearings or just freely rotating until the engager locks into the side of either gear.
Doug,
Thanks for the interest. Bill has it right, but I will be more specific.
This design idea came from Steve Butler, an engineer on our team who was into racing. I made the detailed design, using his idea, and put it on our 2002 robot. This is a more refined version, put on our 2003 robot. Clark and Kyle Gilbert made this model in Inventor and created this nice “cut away” view.
The aqua colored parts that fit inside the gears (green and blue gears) are 3/8" id flange bearings. The gears freely spin on the red shaft and transfer the torque to the red shaft via the orange “dog” gear.
The purple and white bearings are the same as the aqua bearings (3/8" id flange ball bearings). They were just shown in different colors for clarity purposes, I believe (the Gilberts’ idea).
I must say that these gearboxes really performed well for us this year. We had some drivetrain problems, but none were due to this gearbox (other gears and belts outside of this gearbox were more problematic).
My plan is to do an extensive white paper on this improved design and release it by mid-June. Next year, we’ll probably use this design again, with more improvements.
Andy B.
Thanks Bill and Andy for clearing up my confusions. I will also take a look at the white paper from last year.
I know that a number of teams used a version of the 2002 TechnoKat Transmission this year:
226, 368, 968… Anybody else?
Anybody have tips for people new to gear box design/building on making one of these? Any problems you ran into and their solutions?
I love the tranny, it worked perfectly for us this year, it had ample power for whatever we needed it to do. This gearbox would allow our robot to literally wheelie off the line, and almost completely jump the plastic on the ramp. All this with blue supergrip belts!
Tips/Tricks you ask:
- We switched all gears to standard martin 20 pitch. Low was an 80:20 tooth high was 50:50
- We made a gear that was 16tooth and welded on a 48 tooth 0.7 onto it and pressed it onto the CIM for the first stage, the ratio worked well matching the CIM to the Drill. The end of the 0.7 mode gear was then turned down to fit in the bearing on the opposite side of the CIM motor. Now, this assembly was too large to be removed from the motor plate after the gear was pressed on, next year I suggest making the CIM motor mount removable keeping the gear intact.
- MAKE SURE THAT THE CENTER DOG CAN NOT BE IN HIGH AND LOW AT THE SAME TIME. We had one gearbox slightly narrow and the box went from full speed to no speed instantly, ripping the pinion off the drill and severely bending some teeth on the 0.7 mod mating gear.
- Harden the dogs and dog mate (In fact do like the picture shows and get rid of the dog mates, mill them into the gears) We ended up welding the dog mates onto the gears after shearing off the three screws that held each on.
- We omitted the carrier for the end of the drill motor, it was only supported on the motor can side.
- Lighten up all the gears lots, the box is heavy otherwise
- Air shifting worked fine, we are investigating using RC Servos for next year.
- Suggest using gear drive out of the gearbox, we were throwing chains at Buckeye until we made automatic chain guides for Buckeye.
- Suggest that everyone put a 90 degree break on the top and bottom of the gearbox plates for strength, ours are pretty warped after the season (But they still keep kicking)
If I think of more I will post.
Can anybody say “Built by engineers”. This kinda stuff realy makes me angry. When your engineers build your componets for your robot it is a disgrace to what FIRST is about. THe point of First is to see what the students can create not what their engineers can create, then school them on. Just in case asked a question about it by a judge or inspector. I can’t even count how many teams I have seen at regionals where you could have watched them work all day long in the pit on their robot and the never once saw a student touch the thing. Some stuff needs to be changed. It’s just not fair to other teams. Us one of them, we don’t have any big fancy engineers helping us or building our robot. DO you know how many engineers we have? How about this number. ZERO. All those teams out there were your engineers do the work and not you, should feel real bad about yourselves,and any awards you have won. 'cause you didn’t build your robot your engineers did. You know what the great thing about our team is it. We built our own robot, and at the end of the match we can hold our heads up high regarless of the score because, WE built our OWN robot.
*Originally posted by dddriveman *
Can anybody say “Built by engineers”. This kinda stuff realy makes me angry. When your engineers build your componets for your robot it is a disgrace to what FIRST is about.
Okay, you’re new here, so I think we can manage to cut you a few inches of slack.
We have discussed this again and again and again .
The TechnoKats have proven themselves to be one of the best teams in FIRST, not only because of their consistently well-designed and -performing robots, but because of their outstanding team members and the immense help they provide to our community.
While it may appear to you that this transmission was designed entirely by engineers, please keep in mind that they shared it with everyone – including teams like yours that don’t yet have the benefit of engineers to guide them.
Furthermore, I and several others are working toward bringing engineering resources to your team and teams like it through a new initiative. We’re all trying to help one another here, so let’s hasten the righteousness a bit, okay?
Okay.
Hmm… For starters M is right about the TechnoKats being one of the best teams around and a number of thier transmissions are up in the white papers with detailed drawings so anyone who wanted to make one could. If you go and ask anyone on team 45 how thier tranny works, they’ll be able to tell you what you wanted to know and then some more. Its not like and engineer is sitting over there designing amazing parts for thier robot without getting students involved and making sure everyone understands whats they are making. If you just listen and look around at some old posts you can learn a lot from this team, and from the engineers involved with FIRST.
*Originally posted by dddriveman *
**Some stuff needs to be changed. It’s just not fair to other teams. Us one of them, we don’t have any big fancy engineers helping us or building our robot. DO you know how many engineers we have? How about this number. ZERO. All those teams out there were your engineers do the work and not you, should feel real bad about yourselves,and any awards you have won. **
(I was going to go easy on this issue, but the above author has been reading this website since the first part of this year, so…)
Sometimes I think a while before posting, sometimes I go with my gut and shoot from the hip. This time, I’m going with my gut. Enjoy. It doesn’t happen very often.
dddriveman is right… some stuff needs to be changed. However, I disagree with the assesment above. Attitudes need to change. The attitude that promotes attacking other teams and people needs to go away right now. This attitude is being shown by dddriveman above and by others on these valuable forums. This sort of attitude is driving good people (students and adults) away from these forums and I am simply not going to stand back and let it happen.
dddriveman, it is unfortuneate that FIRST means something different to you than it does to almost everyone else out here in FIRST world. I suggest that you look into another robot competition if all you care about is promoting yourself and knocking down others. I cannot let this sort of crap go on.
As for engineer/student involvement and this thread involving the TechnoKat gearbox… you have no clue. You cannot sit there and tell me that 12 years of doing FIRST, working with hundreds of kids is something I “should feel real bad about”. Ask Jadon Smith, a former TechnoKat student who had no where to fit into Kokomo High School 8 years ago, but recently graduated from MIT and works for a place that he cannot tell me about. Ask Phil Lundberg if I should feel bad about helping him become a leader on team 45, inventing CVTs and designing transmissions for Saturn VUEs at the age or 19. Ask me about Chris O’Neill… who quit team 45 as a Junior because things got kinda tough, but now he is an engineering student at Purdue. (this is only the beginning, I can go on and on and on with examples of student success stories)
Go ahead and set up a poll on this website, asking other students who are drivers and student team leaders and ask them if I should be ashamed of myself. I dare you. My guess is that your attitude will back down.
As you can tell, I feel strongly about this issue. FIRST is about Inspiration, simply put. It is great to see students do things without engineering assistance, but FIRST is not about seeing what students can do on their own. Go enter a science fair if you want to show what you can do… but if you think that you can drive us engineers away from FIRST by berating us and telling us that we should be ashamed of our actions, you must be joking.
So, yes… things need to change. Attitudes need to change. I know that I am being harsh with this note, but it is about time that someone stepped up.
Andy B.
/edit - M. & Rob… I appreciate both of your comments… they mean alot to me. Heck, Rob and I have even debated this issue before, but he was tactful and respectful while having a different opinion. Having a different opinion is OK with me… attacking me ticks me off. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. 
Team 45 is one of the best teams I have ever competed with, hands down. They are gracious to other teams, they compete in a professional manner, and most of all, their kids really LEARN. Their students are excited about the program and the changes that they can make in FIRST. They are informed, intelligent, and some of the friendliest kids I’ve ever met. Their mentors are dedicated people who work constantly to improve FIRST and their own community. Indiana is a better state for having such a great team.
My small team needed some help after we had built 4 drive trains and had just about given up hope. Mentors from Team 45 came over and gave my kids a couple ideas as to how to get our machine up and running again, but let the kids learn and experience just how to make it work. I have utmost respect for their team and the way they operate.
I’m sorry that you have the feelings that you do. I hope that you get to experience the TechnoKats in competition and bear witness to their friendly demeanor sometime soon.
I’ve made a post for a topic exactly like this, so… I am just going to copy and paste. 
I totally understand those of you who feel frustrated watching those cool looking robots win the competition… I once was on a team who mostly used bandsaw and drill press to build a robot out of students’ hands. And I felt really jealous when other teams have gear boxes while we could barely host clamp the drill motors on a piece of ply wood.
But I grew out of those feelings as years past because, as years pasted, my team (as well as others) did great at competition even without great engineering support, or fancy machining… As a team, we were able to build better robots just by more and more experience, harder effort in fund raising, and getting help from different people.
I grew out of those feelings as I see other teams won competitions without great engineering. Team 254 cheesy poofs is a classic example, as well as my old team 192, and many other teams. Great gear boxes and complicated machines were only few of the many factors that decide how your robot will do in a competition. There are also scouting, strategizing, and communication between driver and coaches, or between you and your alliance partner.
What is the unfairness between teams anyway? Well, we were all given the same kit of parts, the same battery, and the same rules. Everyone have the same weight and material limit, as well as how much motors/pneumatics we can use. The differences between the teams are their experiences and resources…
With more experience, a team can build a much better robot… Can you really call that unfair? With more resources teams found, they can build a better robot… But who’s stopping you from going out to find more resources? Can we really say it’s unfair because our area happens to have less resource for us to use?
A lot of well-supported teams are really cool teams if you get to know them. They’ve always done great at regionals, and their robots were always really effective and simple. Their team is high spirited, and was great help to teams around them. So, I really do believe they are all great teams to learn a lot from. Take your time and get to know their whole team. That’s what competition is for.
Mean while, I challenge you all to build your team to as good as theirs. Go out and get engineers interested in this program. Go out and get more sponsors to help out.
Also, I’ve seen a lot of their robots, and most of you could build robots just like theirs without great machining (although yours won’t look as good). They have a lot of simple original ideas what work quite well at the competition, and it’s not hard to build.
Don’t feel so frustrated… You have plenty of chances to improve yourself, and make your robot better. You can be competitive in a competition if you keep building a robot that you are proud of.
Mean while, keep sharing your ideas and take advantage of this forum. A lot of other people and I are willing to share what we learned, so don’t be afraid to ask.
A little I want to add. Having NO engineer support is NOT an excuse for you to and say “oh such and such teams have 10 engineers building the robot for them. I am not even going to try anymore.” It is YOUR JOB to get more engineers involved in your team, so you can work TOGETHER with those engineers, and learn from them. It doesn’t mean you tell the engineers to build the robot for you. It means you ask for help and guidance and support when you need them, and make use of their knownledge as much as possible.
When you face a difficult challenge, you don’t look at the answer. You ask for help, and try to learn enough to solve the problem
There are plenty of people around here who are willing to offer their advices. So make use of this forum, and learn as much as you can so you can build those good looking robots too.
I’m sorry about my last statement. I did not mean to attack or single out in any way, shape, or form the Technokats. I was trying to get the point across that some stuff needs to be changed. Again I am not singling out team 45 or any other FIRST robotics team. I also did not mean to come across that strong and I hope that my actions have not impared anyone elses judgement of team 979. I am sorry once again. I also know that the Technokats are a wonderfull team and experienced, as from experience at last years Buckeye Regional.
Since it seems you’ve spotted your own err, i’ll go easy 
The technokats are a very inspirational team. They inspire their engineers, their students, and other teams. Many teams have had a good season because of the Technokat’s generosity.
For example, team 909 (i think) was able to compete at a regional with a robot that was prototyped, designed, constructed, and loaned by the Technokats. Now, I say the team name because it wasn’t just their engineers. It wasn’t just their students. It was their team. Their students working directly with their engineers.
I, for one, am against “Engineer Built” robots. My reasons are posted in other threads. It’s a much different story with “Engineer Assisted” robots, and I even envy the “Student Built” robots.
I was on a team in my home town for 3 years. I joined as a freshman, loved the program, even though the robot sucked and it was mostly engineer designed and built. Second year? About a week after we got the game, we went to the sponsor’s building, and were shown cad drawings of what was going to be built. Again, engineer designed, performed… better. But, at this point I was exposed to two things: 1) The awesome power of CAD, 2) How engineers think. Onto my 3rd year, again, mostly engineer designed… but me and my dad saw a major flaw in a major part of the robot. After a redesign, we ended having our best year yet.
This year I was on a different team, one that is 40 miles away from where I live, (that’s about an 45 min to an hour by car). I made the drive almost every day. The robot is mostly student built (more than 85% designed and built by students), but also had engineers who wanted to “Make you guys the best $@#$@#$@#$@# engineers you can be.”
We were taught through the season engineering practices, and building methods. If something wasn’t working right, an engineer would take a look at it, and modify it’s design. This was my best season ever.
Now here’s the reason you read all of that (assuming you did)…
I would have ZERO drive to join team 470 if it weren’t for team 247. The engineer built robots made me want to be the builder. I got my chance every day, after driving through the lovely Michigan winter weather.
Now I’ve graduated high school, while most kids take that first Monday after school’s out and sleep until noon then go out and party. I started my job. Where do I work? Comau Pico Powertrain Systems, in the engineering department. (Oddly enough, Comau Pico is one of 247’s sponsors :)).
So honestly, if the team is inspired, then so be it. An engineer built robot doesn’t always perform better than the student built ones. Inspire your students, then build a robot as you all see fit.
Technokats have done this tremendously. The way they build is to let everyone be inspired once their students are.
*Originally posted by dddriveman *
**I’m sorry about my last statement. I did not mean to attack or single out in any way, shape, or form the Technokats. I was trying to get the point across that some stuff needs to be changed. Again I am not singling out team 45 or any other FIRST robotics team. I also did not mean to come across that strong and I hope that my actions have not impared anyone elses judgement of team 979. I am sorry once again. I also know that the Technokats are a wonderfull team and experienced, as from experience at last years Buckeye Regional. **
driveman,
Apology accepted. Actually, I understand your frustration and see it often in FIRST. I am frequently frustrated when I see engineers/adults only working on a robot and students standing around watching. This happens in my team’s pit sometimes, and I try very hard to make it not so.
Some of my most enjoyable times in FIRST have been when team 45 students “kick out” the adults from the pits… that makes me very happy and does not happen enough.
The way I see things is this: there is a fine line between student involvement and engineer involvement. Students and engineers should work side by side, actually inspiring each other. I can attest that many students on team 45 and on these forums have inspired me. This inspiration happens both ways.
Please keep your eyes open and try to understand that there are vast benefits to working with excellent engineers like Raul Olivera (111), Paul Copioli (217), Mark Jones (343) and Glenn Thuroughmann (60), just to name a few. There are a slew more, believe me. Take a chance and get to know these guys, and the other dedicated engineers in FIRST. Not only will you learn from their wisdom and experience, but you may also find a friend.
Other smart FIRST students have also had the same opinion you have… now, they may have shown it with more tact, but you may want to talk to them also. Please take the time and talk to other students in your position and learn from their experience.
No harm done.
Andy B.
FIRST’s goal is to inspire people to pursue careers in science and engineering.
It’s mechanism is to create an environment in which Engineers are recognized as role models.
FIRST creates an avenue where young people are exposed to Engineers in daily life. If you think about it, there are no TV programs glorifying the world of engineering. There are very few outreach activities which put engineers directly into contact with the community.
So, if you take the Engineers out of FIRST, what do you have left?
Although Engineers are extremely competitive, we all need to realize that FIRST is -not- about winning the competition. The only reason to have the reaction “Those lousy engineers out-designed me” is because you are too focussed on winning.
The best part of the competition (for me) is to go around the pits on practice day (usually after the crowds have left) and check out all the great designs that people have put together.
Some of the most talented people in the world are designing robots in FIRST. If that were taken away, all of us would be poorer for it.
Perhaps your post would have been fitting elsewhere. But you picked out one of the most (if not the most) respected teams in FIRST.
I see you are sincere in your regression, and I’ll back down now too. The issue here is now dead, please, if you want to start a debate, or continue a debate of the subject… find the approprioate sub-forum and/or thread.
Smiles
The issue is now dead, and I wish that I never brought it up it was a stupid comment that was very immature and unprofesional of me to say what I did.
NO dddriveman, your right. My team 522 has 0 engineers. But ya know what feels good.? When you get against a team with 5 million to spend and engineers build their bots and you win. Yes I agree with what some people were saying, if you go to any of the Delphi teams they will know the robot in and out, there drilled and tested and told what to say to a judge, what to do and when to do it. As some of the TEAMS not the engineers it feels great to show them down. Knowing that an engineers 100 hrs + of work just didn’t make it through your 10 hrs of work. Sometimes its not all equations its just trial and error and common sense.
*Originally posted by Joe Clohessy *
NO dddriveman, your right. My team 522 has 0 engineers. But ya know what feels good.? When you get against a team with 5 million to spend and engineers build their bots and you win… Sometimes its not all equations …
Joe… please see my post… with the following:
The issue here is now dead, please, if you want to start a debate, or continue a debate of the subject… find the approprioate sub-forum and/or thread.
So… you represent your team and say now that it’s more important to win against an Engineer Built team than to learn from them. By pointing out your team number, you are calling yourself the opinionator of the team.
Honestly though, I think if your team had the opportunity to have engineers, you wouldn’t turn them down.
As I said before:
if the team is inspired, then so be it. An engineer built robot doesn’t always perform better than the student built ones. Inspire your students, then build a robot as you all see fit.