I’m on a rookie team this year and we don’t have much funding. We’re looking for old swerve modules or a west coast drivetrain so we aren’t stuck with a KOP chassis. Anyone have any ideas to help us out?
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Use the kitbot.
it’s better than the first year of wcd or swerve.
Stiffen it with a thick belly pan and some good design on the superstructure and you’ll be fine.
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Just out of curiosity, what features/lack thereof is drawing you away from the kop drivetrain and toward a custom wcd?
All our members have previous experience on other teams, the issue is a lack of funding and resources
Lack of maneuverability, weight, hard to replace wheels…
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What area are you in? Maybe some of the local folks can help out.
That said… if you don’t have the resources and funding, it’s going to be tough to get more than a kitbot going. Upgrade the kitbot, sure do that.
For a WCD, pretty much the main issue is just getting the gearboxes and drilling the holes in stock aluminum.
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Ontario (Canada). We’ve reached out to some locals but haven’t had much luck
Definitely agree with Sam here. Custom WCD has some major kinks even for a team with some experience. Chain tensioning, drilling tubes accurately, drop center/omni wheels, etc. I know a lot of people that would argue custom WCD in 2023 is actually more difficult than swerve (minus software, though that’s changing too). Kitbot will solve most of those problems, albeit with some drawbacks, and it can absolutely be upgraded. tldr, I would say pick kitbot or swerve, some strings attached.
On the other hand, I believe the cheapest way to do swerve right now is MAXSwerve from REV, but “cheap” remains in quotes. The modules themselves are 300USD per, so that’s 1200$ right there. As for the motors, it’s a longshot but you might get lucky and some teams near you might sell you NEOs/Neo550s or Spark Maxes (the controllers, you need 2 per module) for less than MSRP given the situation with the new Vortexes and Krakens. Worth reaching out. You can also get Neos and SMAXs from FIRST Choice, but only 2 NEOS and 2 Spark maxes. That’s still some good savings though. Otherwise, the motor and controller bundle is 256$ per module, so another 1024USD. On top of that you’ll need an IMU to drive field-relative swerve, such as the pidgeon 2 from CTRE, which is another couple hundred dollars. Not to mention the structure, which I would suggest using Rev MaxTube for since you’d already have an order going.
Is swerve expensive? Definitely. Probably near 2500$, even if you can swing some savings through various methods. Is it inaccessible for a new team in 2023? That’s more complicated. If you have some experienced students and can stomach the investment, it will certainly give you a huge boost on the field, and it’s considerably easier to design around relative to a kitbot.
tldr, upgraded kitbot = cool, WCD = probably not worth, Swerve = pretty expensive, but might be worth depending on circumstances.
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I would also agree that for your first year, regardless of your personal skill, it might be best to use the kitbot chassis. If you’re nearby however, consider reaching out to Celt-X 5406, were based out of Hamilton, ON. We try to help out teams who need it (not financially) so we might be able to provide advice, or late into the build season we do some FIRST aid, where we help out teams in dire need. You might also benefit from some of the useful information being presented at SWATposium. One of the sessions will be about business, which may involve fundraising. I would encourage reaching out to certain teams who have good fundraising to find out how they do it, so you can replicate their fundraising successes. However it goes, I wish you guys good luck.
Go look at 133, BERT, on TBA. They used the kit drive ± minor modifications for many years up until last year.
If you’re already struggling with budget don’t waste money replacing the KOP drive. Throw everything you have at making excellent mechanisms.
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Another example I can think of: 7457 SuPURDUEper built on the kitbot in a few recent years. I remember their 2022 robot being shockingly good, and their mechanism mounting was pretty innovative.
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I agree with the crowd that you should stick with the KOP chassis. You’ll have enough work to do in your first year that you don’t want to make “building a custom drivetrain” one of them.
If you real want a cantilevered wheel (WCD) setup, REV makes all the parts to put one together, and they ship from Canada.
Alternatively you can use sliding bearing blocks, gussets and gearboxes from TTB and/or Andymark, both of which retail through Studica in Canada.
For tubing you can use Rev’s maxtube, which is pre drilled. But it’s a little weak on the short side of the tube. WCP sells stronger pre-drilled tube, but they ship from the States, which will come with an unpredictable delivery date and a hefty duty COD.
Whatever plan you choose, spend some time in December CADing it all up so you know exactly what to buy, and how to assemble it after kick off. You don’t want to spend more than a week or two on the Chassis!
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What area of Ontario are you in (it’s a pretty big place here 
).
While I agree with others that for your first year, the KOP chassis should work just fine to get you on your feet, if we know the city/area you’re located in, some people here may be able to help get you in touch with teams nearby.
My general suggestion to teams is prove you can make a good robot before moving onto custom drivetrains. The drivetrain although important will mostly only make a robot good if the mechanisms are good in the first place.
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If your team would like to go down WCD path, please reach out to us.
We have a lot of spare parts for WCD that we no longer use.
We would love to send them to local teams that could have some use of them.
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The new kit bot this year is supposedly gonna be better than previous years because in addition to being a drive train it should be able to partially play the game. So I recommend the Kitbot with some modifications to the the scoring mechanism
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While this is a generous offer, please be cautious about re-using custom drive trains. Though teams are allowed to re-use rebuilt swerve modules year over year in new games and robots, it remains against the rules to reuse complete drive trains, or custom components like team-designed WCD gearboxes. I’m sure some teams reuse KOPKit of Parts drives year over year without problems passing inspection but that doesn’t mean it’s “legal”. I think a reused WCD might invite more scrutiny.
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I did some looking but couldn’t find the exact post:
There is a lot of hate for the KOPKit of Parts chassis. It has had its issues over the years.
I seem to recall a post by an (old) community regular, iirc he was an Andymark intern and did work on the KOPKit of Parts chassis a while ago.
When at an event (regional?) he saw a (rookie?) team that used a custom drivetrain. They had managed to “weld” some steel miter/worm gearboxes onto the custom aluminum frame because one of their students was a welder. (If you make a big enough puddle of melted material anything will stick together I guess). I can only imagine what the rest of the robot was like, (A+ for enthusiasm though). They were having all sorts of controls issues. When asked why they did not use the KOPKit of Parts drive train the response was something like “That sh*t’s weak”.
If anyone knows where that post is that would be awesome. This story really illustrates knowing where your capabilities are, how you view competitiveness, what you would like to learn and optimization of resources. This rookie team may have got it wrong because the more public facing community tends to bash the KOPKit of Parts drivetrain way more than it should be.
Edit: I have been informed this was likely a JVN blog post, which is why I cant find it. All the same the story above is still illustrative.
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A thought experiment I commonly give myself each year is this:
For this year’s game, would teams 1678 and 254 beat my team if:
- we are allowed to design and build our robot using all legal and available components, and
- they are restricted to using only a KOP drive base and brushed motors like CIMs.
My answer is always, yes, they would beat us. Especially if my team spends the first two weeks deciding on a custom drive base design, and another two or three weeks building it. Those folks have their drives figured out in a day.
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It was. And they were using the KOP frame for a robot cart as I recall. This was before the AM14U series, but the IFI Kitbot was tough too.
Kitbot works. It may be slower and clunkier, but it Just Works and is easy enough to do some upgrades that give it vastly improved performance.
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