Building States Robot Early

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion VRC
1

Hello. 899A here.

My team and I (mostly me) had decided to make a robot at home with the allowance of my mentor. I already have plans to build my states robot early because we’re going to switch over as soon as we get into states.

So, for the reasoning of this plan is a lot more different that I’ve ever done. I used to spend most of my time working on my main robot and at the point of states, we never were able to proceed because we wasted time before and I could never lock in. My team is fairly new with some people having experience, (about 3, all of us have 2 years and states experience.) I am the main designer of our team, and my team doesn’t really like agreeing with me even if I communicate properly. We had a decision to either make a faster, easier design rather than having a proper design and really good.

**(Another reason is that on my most current robot, It is just an early season bot and it is not very good. I’m the main designer of the team, yet after I built a drivetrain, everyone else took over. What they did was that they took off the claw design off of the most recent hero robot and is just redesigning it with some other capabities. So, for states, I am going to build another robot and frame.) **

So this year I’m a lot more serious than before. I already took home parts to start building and i’m gonna take log of what i do. I’m also gonna get brand new parts and I finally have pneumatics, but they are the older SMC and there is only a single action. I am also buying new wheels, them being 3.25 with omni and traction. (I need help on the SMC pneumatics, as the single action uses so much air that it uses it up in a few presses (letting air flow and release), and I don’t currently have them on me.)

If anyone could help me on this journey, I would be grateful.

Regards,
899A

" We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. "

Winston Churchill

2

Another thing - is 360, 36 - 60 on 3.25’s good? I feel that may be too fast from coming from 257 but I am not completely sure.

3

That turns out to be 61.3 inches per second, so I guess as long as you robot isn’t more than 16 pounds you should be good, it is really up to the driver’s comfort and how fast you think you might need to sprint across the field. I think it is a solid ratio. Another option might be 450 2.75 inch which is 64.8 in/s just slightly faster and your robot will sit a little lower to the ground. I would say the average drive speed this year is probably around 62-73 in/s so do with that as you would.

4

I’m currently running 360rpm on 3.25, and while it’s not super fast, it still takes time to get used to driving. This setup does have a lot of acceleration and torque though, and is a pretty viable option for a defense-oriented bot.

sidenote

Speaking from experience, don’t try to sprint across the field (leaving corner open) to steal a goal when running 360 rpm. That match did not end well.

5

The optimal RPM for a drive depends on your playstyle, if you want to be aggressive to score mobile goals and rings first than maybe you would want to do something like 450 or 400, but if you are more defense orientated than 360 is a very good ratio for that as it provides a good balance of speed and torque.