This video may be of interest to some folks.
-Nick
I notice the Rhino driver seemed careful to not drive forward until the opponent eased back. I don’t know if students in the heat of a match will be that careful. With that tread pushed back so far I’d still be worried about a derailment.
Firstly, Thank you!
This looks pretty promising on the treads durability, and this should be a good starting point to show the feasibility of treads (not that it would really matter by now for this year) That doesnt go without saying the real world never plays out like synthetic testing, its going to be interesting to see how these actually hold up in competition.
What is just as interesting as the rhino performance is the KOP performance with the pneumatic wheels.
It seems to be browning out when stalled. The 12 second, 42 second, and the last two pushing matches is where it looks jumpy (my assumption is brownout, wheels don’t appear to slip). When the robot is moving, it doesn’t seem to have the issue.
I wonder what that spells for many upgraded KOP drives with 8" wheels without an upgrade to the transmissions. Time will tell.
I wonder if some teams running treads will have any tricks built in to prevent t-bones?
how do you prevent a team from pushing you?
Drop down omni wheels or ball casters so you spin instead of getting tboned.
what happens if they go head to head with each other?
My money is on the tank treads winning 
Both the treads and the pneumatic wheels have a lot of traction, I think when head to head it would be the gear-ratios which matter the most. Keep in mind that most teams using the Rhino Track system will be using the 2 CIM Toughbox Mini, not a shifting gearbox.
I feel that pneumatic wheels can beat a tank tread chassis head to head. But it is dependent on gear ratios
This video clip has some instances of what I think will happen. My money is on the pneumatic tires.
That’s some seriously disgustingly nasty dirty carpet. Can’t AM afford a shop vac? 
In the open-bumper experiment, the bumpers of the pushing bot were making direct contact with the tank tracks of the Rhino bot. Would this be a [G24] FOUL by default? It would definitely be [G24] if the Rhino track belting broke.
Seems like teams will most definitely want to protect the entire length of the side of the Rhino track drive train. [G24] aside, breaking the belt could ruin the entire day.
I think that G24 notice would make a good Q&A question. While I’m not a ref (so my opinion has no standing at all), it seems to me that G24 is aimed at robot mechanisms extending past your own frame perimeter and inside another’s. For the bumpers to extend into someone else’s frame perimeter seems to me something that could happen quite regularly with normal game play. The intent of the bumpers is that they are what makes contact between your robot and another - if someone’s frame is lower than your bumpers, is it really your fault of your bumper intrudes an inch or two in that situation?
I’m pretty sure bumpers are not a robot mechanism, but that would be a good Q&A question
They are not… But G24 does not specify mechanisms. It’s really a question of reading the letter of the rule versus the intent, and not knowing (until the question is asked) if your interpretation of the intent and how it will be ruled is correct.
Sorry for the tangent, but rules like this one makes little sense, in my opinion. The action should(or shouldn’t) be a penalty with our without “harm” to the other robot. It shouldn’t matter if the other robot built a robust robot or not…
Does anyone expect a ref to determine, in the heat of a match, if a robot was ‘harmed’ by another robot when they don’t have any idea how the robot is suppose to work? And, I’ve never seen them apply a penalty after a match when shown the clear damage.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the principle you’re espousing, however I have frequently seen referees walk onto the field after a match to inspect robots for various rules violations prior to allowing drive crews and field reset onto the field. I know in one case, they were specifically looking for damage on our robot.
In 2013 another robot playing defense on us popped a wheelie and got its wheel stuck inside our frame. They kept spinning their wheels, ripping up some of our wires. The penalty was assigned after the match but before field reset when the ref walked up to our robot and took a look inside. The contact inside the frame perimeter wasn’t intentional, and neither was the damage. It was damage nonetheless.
I suspect it’d be obvious to a ref that a tank track belt isn’t supposed to break. Yet I also agree with the sentiment that the belt needs more robust framing so that a default robot which makes bumper-zone contact with a Rhino bot doesn’t even risk damage, even if there weren’t a penalty.
I am more concerned about defense as this video was intended to show and the audience to discuss.
Teams with higher bumpers or tank treads higher than our bumpers and/or non-tank treads may end up on its side or bottom vertically stuck.
Its in my opinion that the team that puts another robot in a stuck position, is not at fault of their own if they are:
- In the act of trying to do something else such as getting in position to score.
- If the other team is trying to play defense on them and the team is simply trying to counter that defense.
I am envisioning that we will see it quite often this season.