Starting to design a robot and wanted to see if anybody has any good ideas!
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I actually kind of like the drivetrains from some robot reveals early this season, and I know they mentioned that there’s room for improvement, but I think they’re quite inspiring.
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I would start with your goals for the game. What are your goals for scoring methods? Do you think you could design a drive that can go over the barrier? If so, I’d recommend prototyping ideas around this key capability. Are you planning on driving under the sides? If so, the maximum height there is going to impact every other component. Are planning to climb/hang? If so, understanding the maximum weight limit of your climb mech will define many choices.
A robot is a system of tradeoffs. You cannot just survey other teams to pick the “best drive” or any other component. You have to come up with design priorities and then make other choices to support those.
I have a ton of respect teams that make small proof of concept protos of key mechanisms. Quickly learning about key ideas in your design teaches you a ton about your design. It is so much better than surveying robots on YouTube and picking one to copy/be inspired by.
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look on youtube there are already a bunch of ri3ds and ri24h
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welcome to the forums,
do some of your own research
do some prototyping
build your final drivetrain
wow its almost like vex teams should use the engineering design process instead of asking other people to do all their work for them
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I’ve seen a couple of videos of “Boat Drive” . Basically a drive train with a piece of Plastic that is curved to guide/coast of the rail Ideally tho this should be either all the way across or adding a 6 wheel in between to bridge the gap .
What I was thinking about is going with a Mecanum Wheel Drive, where the motors are on top the wheels to keep the design compact and tight as I want to make a small from factor bot will prove to be useful as if you aren’t going over the barrier it might be useful to go under , I’m also thinking for the end game mechanism adding a lock to prevent the robot from moving down
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@Dave-TBR Engineering is a collaborative process and we should not discourage less experienced teams from asking for recommendations on starting points. To the OP I think a tank drive would be the easiest and most versatile as it gets the most out of the motors.
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I recommend a standard 4 or 6 motor tank drive, since its simple enough to design, build, and code. This should help you with any of your questions about what and how to gear your drivetrain.
I completely agree that engineering is a collaborative process, however we as a vex community should not be encouraging new teams to ask for ideas, and to have research served on a silver platter. The engineering design process has a research step. Vex teams should research good ideas for drivetrains. There are many resources out there already. Typing a 15 word question onto the vex forums isnt research, its laziness.
I don’t see why asking people with more experience doesn’t count as doing “some of your own research.” The only form of research that isn’t looking at others’ findings is making every kind of drivetrain you can and testing the pros and cons of each, but most teams simply do not have the time or resources to do that. If there are “many resources out there already,” you should share them because the only things I could find were out-of-date threads and videos with points that don’t apply to over under.
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Information about something like a drivetrain will never be out-of-date until some major changes happen to motors, gears, or wheels. Even then, the advantages of things like X-Drives, Tank-Drives, and Mechanum Drives over each other will still apply. Doing your own research about these drives does not necessarily mean that you should build each one of them, but that you should learn what the drives do and how they have advantages over other drivetrains. Then, you should use what you know about the Over Under game to choose a drivetrain.
One good resource to learn about common Vex Drivetrains is the BLRS Wiki: VEX Drivetrains - BLRS Wiki (purduesigbots.com). This website highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each drivetrain.
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I believe your entire argument to be a big misunderstanding. Neither of you disagree with the basis of the other’s view but think that they are taking it too far.
Foximusprime isn’t trying to argue that teams should simply ask the forum to plan their robot for them, rather that the forums are a place one can search for inspiration.
Dave-TBR is misunderstood similarly to Foximusprime in the sense that they mean that the forums shouldn’t design the entirety of a team’s robot but is misinterpreted to be saying that the forums shouldn’t ever help anyone with an important aspect of their robot. I understand that Dave-TBR’s first post in this topic may have come across as a harsh “no” to helping the OP but it likely resulted from a misunderstanding of the OP’s intention. Dave-TBR may have interpreted the OP to be asking for a very specific fully-designed drivetrain where the post was simply asking what type of drivetrain people were planning to use.
As for the OP’s question I don’t currently have more unique input but, as others stated, the tank drive is a solid choice (not to be confused with the only choice).
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Thank you for the clarification. I see where the misunderstanding is coming from now and apologize for getting the thread off-topic.
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