This is Riptide Robotics, an up and coming supplier for FRC!
Our goal is to create and offer products that are practical, affordable, and durable. We have not officially launched our 2021 product catalog, but we would like to see the community interest for a product that recently we designed and tested for the 2020 season.
It is a custom wheel for teams who want to balance the generator switch, helping them to ensure the RP when possible. Below are a few pictures, specs, and a STEP file for the product:
We are looking to sell these for ~$25 with free shipping. If your team is interested or has any comments or questions, please leave a comment here or PM us.
Keep in mind, for this to be FRC legal, the supplier has to qualify as a “Vendor” which is defined in the 2020 game manual. The most important qualification is that the vendor has to have a federal tax ID number and cannot BE an FRC team (but can be affiliated with one).
You’re going to have a hard time gaining traction as a supplier if you remain anonymous. I personally wouldn’t invest money in an unproven, anonymous supplier.
I want to have confidence that if things go wrong with a product, that the supplier will back their product. When I don’t know you, and you don’t have any history, I can’t have that confidence.
As I understand it, this is just an interest request for an initial offering. I doubt Riptide has nailed down more details than given here. As a member of #translatorclimbgang, this seems like a good solution though.
It already has a 1/2" round hole, so it’s not too difficult to broach into hex. A good amount of teams have access to a broach and appropriate press, and that proportion is probably higher for teams considering translating climbs. Granted, this product seems to be geared more at teams looking to add that functionality onto their already built simple robot, which likely is a smaller group with less access to tooling.
Yeah I think a $200 broach and a long reach press is a bit out of the way for some teams.
1072 has a broach and if we were interested in a roller like this one, we would just buy it instead of broaching. The saved time is worth more than a few dollars. If it was a $40 product, we might broach our own instead.
