I was looking at this robot and it seems like they cut a 4-inch compression wheel in half. I was curious if it was cut in half and what the benefits of it are. And is it worth it?
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3 and 4 inch flex wheels are big and heavy, cutting them saves space and weight. Not much else to it.
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I’m wondering how they go about cutting the flex wheels so cleanly. All of the methods I’m thinking of cutting the flexwheels (hack saw and dremel) seem like they would result in jagged edges.
Exactly, same with the gears in their lady brown mech
I am a mentor, and my teams have successfully cut flex wheels in half. In order to do so they 3D printed a guide that the flex wheel fits in. It fits so that one half of the flex wheel is snug in the guide, while the other half sticks out the top. This makes it so that the flex wheel stays rigid white cutting. They then cut it in half using our band saw. I am pretty sure they got the file for the 3D printed guide from a discord server, but I/m not sure which one.
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People usually build a jig. I’ve seen nice ones made of wood and 3d printed but you can really just do a 4x4 square of anything else half an inch tall and then cut everything above half an inch. They are easy to cut though u can do it with a knife or something which is probably better than a hacksaw.
If you look at like 4:30 of this robot reveal from Revision a couple years ago they have a good example of a jig and explain flex wheel cutting.
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we use a utility razor blade, works very excellent.
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Wow, those are quite clever ways of cutting the wheels. I guess I never considered the use of a typical knife or blade.
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Besides weight and stuff do the wheels give it more of a flick onto a goal?
yes, they force the outside of the ring to swing out and then score on the goal.