is it feasible to switch our drivetrain before our 2nd competition? we currently have 4in wheels at a 1:1 gear ratio with green motors. It wasn’t bad at our event (it gave as slight edge in torque, which allowed us to just sit in the positive corner while our opponent did all the hard work), but it was somewhat slow, and made the robot tippy. we would wheelie slightly when accelerating/stopping, which made us get stuck on the rings a lot. we have 3 weeks, excluding Christmas break, to make adjustments, but since the class itself is over (we usually only go to 1 event/year, we convinced our mentor to let us go to a 2nd one this year that’s really close to us), we only have study halls and occasionally 1 or 2 people staying after school to work.
So, basically, the question is: is it worth spending the time we have left to give ourselves a better drivetrain, and hope we can reconfigure our auton in time? Or should we take the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” route and focus on optimization instead (such as drive practice, hood optimizations, and better auton)?
here’s a video of our robot at its last event (taken by 255M):
I personally feel like changing your drivetrain is not the best idea since you have such limited time to work. It could be helpful but refining autons and potentially creating a wall stake mechanism could be more beneficial. Autons are incredibly important as the 6 points you win in auton can decide the match. Furthermore, creating a consistent wall stake mechanism could allow for you to gain access to more points. Your current drivetrain might not be the most ideal, but it should serve you well. Remember, a prepared and refined robot can outperform a rushed meta robot more often than many people like to admit. Consistency is key.
any ideas on how to reduce the tippiness then? Getting stuck under everything got very annoying at the event, especially since the front wedge would dig into the ground and make it hard for us to free ourselves.
I think you’ve got a good point though, especially since we’re used to using the 4in wheels (they’re all we had in previous seasons). as for wall stakes, that’s what the small pneumatic brackets off the sides were for (they’ve been optimized for durability since I took that picture, but are otherwise unchanged). The idea seems sound, but it’s hard to use with manual motor inputs, so I’m thinking of maybe adding some sort of sensing.
aren’t those used for hook conveyors though? if i’m thinking of the right thing, it’s the arm on 255M. We can’t do that because the conveyor and hood mechanism are in the way.
The tipping problem is most likely not caused by your drivetrain but rather your center of gravity might be too high. Try moving heavy things as low as possible (brain, battery, pneumatics tank if you have it). We had that same problem too multiple times and the center of gravity was always the issue
You could maybe use antitip gears like how 100A Jugglenauts have it in the FUN interview.
If you are using antitip with 4 inch wheels, you might need to cut down the gear teeth alittle and place it on the front or back of your drivetrain.
Below are attached photos of what I did to stop my robot from tiping
ok I know i’m bringing back an old topic, but any last-minute changes before our comp next week? (by the way, the first time our team has ever done more than one event in a season) Depending on which teams actually show up, we could actually have a shot at winning and making it to states, which I’d never seriously considered before.
The hood scoring is still somewhat inconsistent, but I don’t think that’s getting fixed in time (it’s not a huge problem anyways, just annoying). as you can see, the main changes I’ve made are the wheels on the intake (not quite the solution suggested by 26163A, but almost as effective and way easier to implement) and the ring sweeper, which I’d seen in the Sugar rush livestreams and thought it would pair well with our general strategy.
If your comp is next week I wouldn’t make any major changes. I’d focus on tuning your hood a little bit more to make it more consistent, make sure your notebook is ready, practice driving, make sure everyone on the team is prepared for an interview from the judges, and if you find yourself with lots of extra time you could also work on adding to your robots auton. Good luck, and let us know if you made it to states!
. Theyre literally sugar rush finalists