Seeing that the flex wheels are only now legal for VRC, I assume that many teams wouldn’t have much experience with them (such as ours). How good are flex wheels for intakes, in comparison to a gear with foam wrapped around it for example? We don’t really have the funding to test them out, so any advice would be very useful. Thanks.
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pretty good.
Just look at the vexu TT reveals if you want to see some usecases
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I’ve been messing around with them for a while now, THEY’RE AMAZING. Gears with foam around them isn’t that good because it doesn’t compress that much, the compliant wheels compress way more allowing more grip. Not to mention they’re hot
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They also take up less space than flaps which is nice for building compact things.
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How are you planning on using the flex wheels on the intakes? A sprocket wrapped with flaps at their front and a flex wheel at the back? Or two flex wheels per intake?
You can do a combination of different things like a flex wheel in the front and back, just isn’t he back with flaps or just a gear with rubber bands or foam. Maybe have omnis in the front and flex in the back. Or the opposite. Kind just depends on what works for you. I feel having two flew wheels and the front one cut up so the segments are like by them selves might be really good for this game. What I am wondering the most it the amount of grip they have.
Can anyone guess what flex wheels (light grey, dark gray, and black) would be best for this years intakes? We’ve got hardly any money to test them all out. Obviously this wouldn’t be fixed, but any indication would help me out.
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I have no clue. I would say in about a week or two people might now.
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I would like to direct everyone to this link. Just a warning it is explicit. You can see that the flex wheel is being used in the intake, I’m guessing it’s a 2" wheel.
EDIT : if you look at 0:49 it looks like its a 4" wheel, sorry 
I would say the 30A light grey ones might be the best. Here’s a chart of common items for reference:
You can research more about Shore Durometer if you want to know more about what the <#>A numbers mean.
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What are those intakes on the front?
Both wheels are from flex wheels. The one in the front is just cut to form an L shape.
Can confirm that shore 30 (light gray) 4 inch flex wheels are OP. Got em yesterday, and I am very happy.
So much grip with not much compression. It’s great. On my intakes the deformation of the wheels does not have to be extreme, and my limited experience suggests that extreme compression for much deformability of the wheels is just unnecessary.
They will likely need replacements if they begin to flake. The outer surface was concerningly smooth, but my fears were unfounded. Greeeeeaaat product, bought all sizes shore 30, but have only been testing the 4 inch.
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I would suggest also using them for your front intakes by creating flaps with them. Only as long of your coach/mentor allows of course.
I mean it might work, but i deem it unneeded.
Slight, uniform deformation is key with these, but then again, perhaps cutting them allows for stiff, deformation that allows for more compression?
If ur budget says no, I wouldn’t risk cutting em, you may need replacements in the first place, why cut more?
Making the flaps increases the amount of total surface area that can touch the ball, thus increasing the speed and probabilty of the wheel getting a grip of the ball. Overall just more efficient but I can understand what your saying as the flex wheels ( especailly 4" ) are costly.
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You phrased that far better than I tried to, good point.
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So the intakes that we had last year were different on each robot. The 24 bot has 5 inch wheels as the primary wheels and the 15 had the 4 inch wheels as the primary wheels. The 24 had custom machined intakes but the 15 was mainly vex parts. It is possible to make intakes like our 15 bot. I think there may be some pictures out there of the intakes but I don’t know how much we released from our photo album.
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Both robots used two sizes
24" had 5" 30A that were flapped for the front funneling
24" had 4" 30A that were left normal for the back compression wheel
15" had 4" 30A that were flapped for the front funneling wheel
15" had 3" 30A that were left normal for the back compression wheel
The colors correspond to increasing hardness as the color gets darker
so 30A is the lightest color and the softest material
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Okay, do you think it will make much of a difference if we use two 4" wheels instead of a 4" and 3" wheel?