Our team was wondering how people are using brakes to not get pushed around. we have a four motor drive and are using all 12 motors. we tried using 2 high traction and 2 omni and are still able to get pushed around plus our turning radius is severely effected. I would like to know your opinions.
I’m assuming you have a tank drive.
Try using 6 wheels, geared together. The front and back wheels should be omni, and the middle wheels should be high traction. That way you can turn more easily, and it will be harder to push you.
If you have an omni drive (anything that can strafe), you can also keep people from pushing you just by giving slight power in the opposite direction.
The size of the wheels is slightly different by a tiny little bit. So prepare for that rockin.
Oh, I didn’t know that. Which is bigger?
Omnis.
So both omnis would touch the ground, and the traction wheels wouldn’t… So that wouldn’t help you at all, my bad.
The issue with break system is you don’t necessarily need it if you think about it this way:
When the opponents are trying to push you, it’s either you have 2-3 orange balls or you are a really high scoring robot. When the opponents are spending a lot of time pushing you around, they are not able to score, but you can maybe juke them out and score. When opponents are scoring, they can’t score. That is our logic here. Brake system also takes away 2 slots in pneumatic so you only have 10 motors left. IT greatly affects your robot design and ability
I agree with this for this years game. Although, being able to defend yourself was a key strategy in both toss up and sack attack, I believe a lot of it is now tactical driving. Don’t try to quarrel with a defending bot when you can avoid it. I think the best defense will be a fast robot that can just bump the opposing alliance off target whenever it tries to score while still scoring itself.
Might make some mad opposing teams though.
@ThunderRobotics I’m sorry.
Bad movie, good quote… and great strategy.
No, no, he didn’t slam you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you… he rubbed you. And rubbin, son, is racin’.
We had a 6 wheel drive in toss up with tractions in the middle, and we mounted the middle wheels so it is a few spacers lower. That way, on a solid, flat surface the robot actually teeters back and forth a little bit, but on the foam tiles it gives excellent traction and makes it virtually impossible to be pushed.
If you are using the 4" wheels, attach one of the High Strength 4" Traction Tires to a 30t HS Sprocket. Those provide more traction than the generic 4" traction tires.
To make the radius the same on the 4" wheels, you can wrap 2 rubber bands on the inside of the tires. Makes putting the tires back on pretty difficult, but it works well.
I would recommend making a pneumatic brake as it is highly effective. My team’s bot isn’t that big (about 15x15x15) and when we had our brake on and asked bigger bots to push us, they couldn’t.
ok so i did the 6 wheel drive and the high traction is not touching the ground and have an idea to make suspension for it but not sure if its the best idea.
Another option could be shimming the 4" wheels. You end up not having a continuous c channel front to back. The wheel that is smaller should be shimmed down with 1x25 pieces to the height differential. So instead of dynamically doing it with rubber bands you could statically shim them in place.
Downside is it makes any connections to that shimmed wheel area more difficult. Gearing that wheel is not nice and forces you to chain or direct drive.