Hello, this is our robot. My team and I are new to VEX Robotics this year, and we think we did pretty good at our first attempt. Attached are some pictures of our robot from various angles.
Robot Specs:
-6 speed motors, each connected to 1 high traction wheel (direct drive)
-no power expander (yet)
That’s basically all we have on our robot, and we have managed to get first place overall in qualifiers, as finals still have yet to come. Some tips I found while building this:
Keep everything as structural as possible. Reinforce EVERYTHING, because with the abuse a pushbot takes, it WILL break/fall off/come apart. Personally, I think that a curved/angled pusher is the best design for a pushbot, because we can reach into corners easier, and the smaller points make it easier to manipulate stars rather than a flat pusher.
Any feedback/ideas/support is appreciated.
Have a good day!
Video:
Edit: We have had this robot since the start of the school year, and we have refined it to the point where we feel it doesn’t need improvement.
Also, can you explain why you went with that wheel setup. You could have easily made your base longer and had all the wheels together. This configuration just looks like unnecessary weight. Otherwise, decent bot.
Since you guys are only using 6 motors on you robot, you could either double up on motors and use 12 for your drive or create some kind of mechanism that allows your robot to hang/compress cubes to make it easier to push under.
Thank you for your confidence in our robot. Could you please elaborate further?
I say that it doesn’t need improvement because in the league that my team competes in, we can consistently beat everyone in it, even if we get a badly built kit bot as a team mate and two clawbots on the other team (albeit, the clawbots in our league aren’t the best things in the world).
Our robot wasn’t fast enough with only 4 wheels, and we didn’t have enough space to put them in a line without moving a lot of things in the robot. We tested a second chassis that was an exact copy of ours but with the wheels in a line, and we didn’t see any noticeable difference. In addition, we added a weight to the underside of our robot (essentially just a stack of steel plates bolted together) because we noticed that our robot was spinning its wheels and not gripping up fast enough. With the weight, our robot handles much better, and because of its increased mass, can win at tug of war matches against other robots on the opposite side of the fence, as shown in the video.
We’ve thought about hanging, but in about 90% of our matches, we’ve ended up against the fence for the last 10 seconds, keeping stars on the other side. Hanging isn’t really a possibility with the teams we are up against. Compressing cubes also is not a problem for us, as once we move on to finals next month, our alliance partner can easily take care of cubes. In the video, 98805A, our partner, can easily throw cubes to the other side. Once we are in finals, (also responding to @NightsRosario here) we won’t need to improve our robot because we can do everything that our partner cannot do, such as get cubes/stars that are in corners or other difficult places.
I said that because every robot can be improved upon, even in the most miniscule of places. You could add a brake system to ensure that you can’t be pushed. You could add a star knocker to get quick points above and below in autonomous. You could just change the weight distribution. Stuff like that
If nothing else, you could put your other 6 motor on your drive. 6 motors is a lot of power to decide to just not use. You could even make another 6 motor pushbot and tether them together.
EDIT: Personally, if I was good enough to win in a region (I’m not . . . yet), I wouldn’t stop there. I’d strive to be the best in the state/country/world/what have you. Not having a need to improve the robot doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
I think that this would be ideal, however, our school doesn’t have enough motors to supply us (our whole school is out of motors) so we have added a power expander to power the right side of the robot separately. this makes our robot noticeably faster, and for now, gives us the extra power we need. i will definitely consider that though, and i will see if i can get my coordinator to order some more motors.
very true indeed.
Thank you for your feedback and comments, they are much appreciated!
Just a suggestion in the power expander. Rather than powering the two sided separately, it might be a good idea to split the power differently so that if the ptc in either the power expander or the cortex trips, you have the other one to still move and be able to drive straight. If and when you are able to add more motors, this will be a bigger issue.
I like simplicity and sometimes, the simplest way to get something done is the best. Good job.
