Where do you guys purchase your tiles other than from VEX? We need 144 ft.² of tiles. I would like to get gray smoke color. And of course they need to be cheaper than $180. Or else I would just get the VEX tile…
Forgive errors. Typed by Siri
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I have herd that Harbor Freight Tools has them for a good price or they are on Amazon.
Harbor Freight.
Can you guys link me to them? Thanks 
We might go to Harbor Freight and ask for sponsorship
I can’t find them on their site, but they were in a sales flyer a couple months ago. We had some we bought long before getting into robotics that we have used and they work OK. There is a slight difference in them that seems to effect friction so we had to make some changes in our autonomous at our first match since we encountered some differences. For a practice field they should be fine, and with Toss Up they should really pose no difference.
I bought a set for my team at getrung.com. They sell a package that contains 6 tiles. But their prices go down for multiple packages. When I bought them, I got a 6 packages of 6, and there was a sale going on. I got the whole field’s worth for $108 - including shipping. I just checked and now the price, including shipping to California, is $120. Here is a link:
http://www.getrung.com/10mm-shopping.html
Hope this helps,
Irv
yah i cant find them either on the web but I know they have them. you might just give them a call to make sure they have them. I think they are about 9-12 dollars for 4 tiles.
So Lowes, Home Depot and Costco all carry them. BUT look a the tiles when you buy them. Some of them have a mid tile tab that goes to the left and some go to the right, It’s not important for your first 12x12 set, but becomes more important when you go to replace the tiles.
Just a warning. People that help RIP the floor apart will do just that, tile teeth will fly. The thicker VEX tiles don’t have that problem. A little training on the thinner tiles will make you happier
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Does it matter if I get a thicker mat than the VEX mats? I don’t think it will…
Costco huh? I’ll have to check on that. My parents and I shop at Costco all the time.
the only thing about different thicknesses is the robot might get different amounts of traction or drag. I don’t think the difference will be that big or even significant, but something to think about.
We run our robot on off brand 3/8 inch tiles and last year we found that it was around 10% faster on our tiles than it was on competition tiles. We don’t believe that having thinner tiles was the main cause of the increased speed, but it may have been a factor.
Also, team 4020 was looking to sell 8 used sets of tiles for $100 each at the IOWA-380 Corridor VEX Tournament in late January last year. I don’t know if they’re still looking to sell them, but if you’re interested call their assistant coach Carl Miller at 319-461-2927.
The result was quantified by driving our robot across the field at a 1:1 gear ratio on our tiles and competition tiles. It took around 8.5 seconds on competition tiles and a little over 7.5 seconds on our tiles, a difference of around 12% or 13%. I wasn’t looking at the exact numbers when I said 10% yesterday.
Both sets of batteries were charged to 8.2 volts and we ran the test multiple times on both the competition field and our field and threw out the times of any runs that had abnormalities (i.e.: the robot wasn’t driving straight, the strafe wheels kicked in, the stopwatch wasn’t started/stopped close enough to the start/end of the run, etc.). Beyond that we threw out any times that did not match closely enough to the general trend of the other times for that field. While we do not know the impact the thickness of the tiles has, we do know that it is one of the main variables left unaccounted for.
Well from Google searching I have a very comprehensive list of all the suppliers they use for about every product 
or at least did use in 2011 they got tiles from this company http://www.greatexportimport.com/s-eagle_tree_international_co_ltd/1503684
Very irreverent as you can’t purchase directly
Edit: looked into it more and this site seems like their only supplier is eagle tree so it seems likely one of their products could be the same http://www.softtiles.com
Seems you can get tiles for 4$ each from them any their chosen colors and with small defects xD [2x2 Foam Mats | Discount Foam Mats | Kids Interlocking Floor Mats — SoftTiles
Also while on this site I noticed a pretty cool bag for the tiles might be handy for event partners to bad it holds 25 and not 18.](2x2 Foam Mats | Discount Foam Mats | Kids Interlocking Floor Mats — SoftTiles)
Just a note from my own experience:
Not all tiles that are the same size are the same size. Don’t expect to be able to mix and match tiles from different vendors, even if they are the same nominal thickness and interlock pattern.
As a former VRC team coach, if I saw real differences in performance between regulation tiles and thinner tiles, I wouldn’t even think about using thinner ones. I would think that I’m spending over $1,000 (or $1,500) on parts for a single robot, plus travel, plus registration fees, plus everything else, and that an additional $50-75 to make sure that my test field was the same as the regulation field seems like a small price to pay (to me). Do what you have to do, but for me this seems like a poor place to save a little money. (Here’s a real cost-saver: go easy on the hacksaw…)
The Softile bags are the absolute best when it comes to storing and transporting tiles. I love them. I imagine someone else makes bags like this, but I can testify that the Softile bags are strong and convenient.
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