They just announced the new VEX products for next year.
I didn’t write them all down but I assume they will be up on the website soon.
Gyro - Finally, Omni drives are going to be a whole lot better next year when we can do driver centric control.
2.75" Double Omni Wheels like th3 4" models. Would have helped a lot of team be able to drive into the ladder.
Turn tables - turrets on way more robots, the possibilities are really cool, with these things.
Joystick AC adapter - no more running through AAA batteries like they’re water.
Partner Joystick coming in June will allow for a cheap way to run with two drivers.
Future Stuff
Quad Encoders that attached directly to the backs of the motors.
New linear slides of some kind
New Cortex Firmware that JVN says will make our programmers happy.
I probably missed some stuff but what does everyone think. VEX is really stepping up the product line up to allow for some really advanced designs.
Especially looking forward to the new encoders, and CORTEX firmware. Not sure what the firmware will include, but if it will make me happy, I’m looking forward to it. Also can’t wait to get my hands on the new Gyro. Finally.
Agreed. VexNET has come a long way (I think JVN said 12 sec link to 3 sec link, which sounds about right), however, VexNET has one major drawback: Heavy use of WiFi can interfere with it. In most cases this wouldn’t be a big deal, but a a place like worlds, where everyone wants to remain connected, it is a problem that cannot be easily remedied.
Also, I can’t believe I forgot to mention how much I hate the old encoders in my previous post.
vexnet is way better than it was with the upgrade, but it still has glaring issues. a faster link time would be great, especially when it drops in the middle of matches. i was able to detect a lot of wifi networks at worlds and i was under the impression that they were not going to allow any extra networks. that really needs to be enforced.
the current encoders are way too big and they really dont even need to be half that size.
You would have had to turn on a WiFi device to detect WiFi devices at the tournament, which means you were violating the very rule that you are saying others were not following. If you have a good suggestion on how to get you to stop turning on WiFi on your smart phone, those of us at VEX and RECF are very interested to hear it.
I ordered the new 2.75in Dual Roller Omni Wheels, the Turntable Bearing Kit, and the VEXnet Power Adapter and received them this week. I haven’t opened any of the packages yet, but they all look great!
I wasn’t quite sure exactly how the Turntable Bearing Kit worked and I found this great YouTube video on the product page tonight:
Have you seen it? The arm they built to show off the Turntable Bearing Kit is really amazing! I bet something like that could really be useful for Gateway this year. (remember Smartkid’s (Cody’s) stationary robot idea)
funny how in the videos, the rotation is limited by some short wires
i wonder how much slack you need in the wires to have enough “unlimited” rotation to last a match
it would be a shame if you had to go all the way around just to pick something up because of that limitation
going to be interesting how people use this on their robots
This is something pretty popular in the FIRST world. It is called Co-Ax Swerve Drive. The module can spin indefinitely (no motors are attached to moving parts so you don’t have to worry about wires). Take a look at the pictures and see what you can learn from them.
Actually, the smaller turntable looks to have been designed with coaxial swerve drives in mind. They have a (round) axle hole running through their center axis that is perfect for the drive shaft. I’ve started assembling a swerve module using the small turntable and it seems like it would work well enough, though the gear meshing seems to be a bit tight.
The tricky thing about coaxial swerve drives is that you have to compensate for the fact that the drive shaft is driven from the non-rotating mount but the wheels are on the rotating module. You have to add the module’s rotation to the drive shaft’s rotation or the wheel will advance just because the module is steering. This can be done mechanically (with a differential) or in software.
Perhaps not as useful as some would like. It basically tells you have fast you are turning, not how far you are turning. It looks like you will need some complex code to tell you how far you have turned, assuming you have turned at a constant rate.
I did not purchase the turntable (yet). I was looking at the product page and it looked to me like one of the holes was square. As far as the compensating for rotation I feel as though in FRC robots it may be fairly negligible as often times FRC swerve modules have a significant gear down during the final stage in the chain that is part of the module (see the link in my previous post) so this would make it so that the wheel turns very little during rotation of the module and also on a FRC scale a few inches in autonomous is not a huge deal. You too could make use of a big gear down in your module to minimize wheel spin during module rotation… other than that you just have to know it is there…
