Solving low tire traction

Hardware Robot Hardware
1

We are working with XRP bots as an intro class to FRC programming. This is a fantastic opportunity to bring students up to speed with a piece of hardware they can play with while still having a full FRC-like environment for learning.

We have noticed the traction on the tires is very minimal. It does kind of make sense, you have an o-ring tire on a round wheel, which means essentially a single point of contact with the floor. On top of that, the weight of the robot is in the center where the batteries are.

We have experimented with adding weight over the tires, and found that adding about 75g of weight over each tire makes a huge difference (basically, driving straight instead of drifting, tires spinning or actually moving the robot, turning in tight circles, etc.)

Does anyone else have any recommendations for how much weight to add? I just purchased a steel 1" bar from lowes to try and make the weight adjustable, will cut up on the shop. But just curious how other solve this problem.

2

We used the solution here:

These tires work a lot better than the original. The only issue we ran into is that the wider tires will sometimes rub against the robot frame. Our fix for this was to slightly modify the 3D printed wheels such that the connector that slides onto the motor shaft is a little bit shorter so that the wheel sits a little closer to the motor (and therefore a bit farther away from the robot frame)

3

I have installed the parts from: Skinny Wheel for TT DC Gearbox Motors : ID 3757 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits . They work for me. May
need to sand the hub of each motor a little. The out side gap for each 0.50mm [feeler gauge] before sanding.