A new challenge that we are about to start at James Lee
I came up with a new challenge that we will be doing it's called the Car Challenge. Feel free to do it with your team, comment on it, critique it, and redistribute it. But remember to give credit where credit is due.
The Car Challenge
For the James Lee Botball Team
Allowed materials:
• Lego pieces (unlimited)
• metal pieces (unlimited)
• motors (limited by controller)
• servos (limited by controller)
• sensors (limited by controller)
• one controller (either Link, CBC, or XBC)
Objective:
Recreate the basic drive train, and steering of a rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive car. The car will have two axles and four wheels (the front axle can be segmented for steering purposes).
Extra Objectives:
Use only one motor to power the rear wheels.
Recreate a transmission with at least four forward gears.
Thanks for sharing! I'd be curious to hear how successful students are at this challenge.
Also, welcome back to the Botball Community! I don't think I've seen any posts from you for a while.
-Jeremy Rand
Senior Programmer, Team SNARC (2012-2013), Norman Advanced (2010-2011), Norman HS (2008-2009), Norman North (2005-2007), Whittier MS (2003-2004)
2012-2013 VP of Tech, 2011 President, Botball YAC (2009-2013)
Mentor, Alcott and Whittier MS
This sounds pretty cool, but I thought I'd mention most cars have the engine in the front. Also, considering the difficulties and space constraints involved in building a Lego transmission, it would be much easier to have the "engine" in the front.
Update: I built a transmission today, and the benefits of having multiple gear ratios available seem to be outweighed heavily by the negative effects created by the amount of friction inherent in complex Lego gear systems. So much torque was lost to friction in my original design that the wheels didn't even move! I think building a transmission was cool in and of itself, but I probably won't incorporate one into the final design. This is a really cool challenge by the way, thanks for sharing!
Update 2: I think the main source of the torque loss was actually the mechanism I was using to disengage the wheels from the transmission, so a different design may work well enough to be effective.
Norman Advanced Robotics
#YOLOSWAG
Ah, a nice, fun, easy challenge. Thanks for sharing, I would be excited to build something like this. But, I'm a bit more interested in a continuous track like on a tank. Now, that would be interesting.
This seem to be a good time consumer during the gap until the new board is released. I am going to try this out with my group. This seems fun!
I agree! Thank you for sharing!
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The challenge is really interesting. It will probably take a while, but I'll give it a try. Word Hurdle dordle. Thanks for sharing!