Battery Buggy B

[robotman]

so i missed the competition this weekend-- so i asked our Bat Bug team how it went -- this is what they said
They built the buggy the night before.... collaborated for 30 minutes but it was 11pm so they had to go.
at the competition the first time, it ran into the bucket
the second it ran into the proctor.
we got Fourth in this event out of 20 or so teams...
tell ya anything??

I wouldnt count how it worked a Cy falls as a good judge of how it did overall

[purplepeopleeater]

you kidding??? i know not my event though it takes TONS of work to get to nats. haha, TONS

thats why we are building a new one. how it worked at cy falls was a desperate run. our B team got first and they have it pretty down, so we are modifying designs and redoing blueprints.

oh yeah the whole point of the above "story" which is true... is that we ALLLL have work for Div B buggy if our quick build was 4th.

[lakeside]

Is there any reason I couldn't use wind-up lego motors and put the axle on a slant to travel around the obstacle? The rules never mention specifically that you have to use batteries. My school isn't going to be able to get motors but we have plenty of lego pieces lying around

[ichaelm]

Is there any reason I couldn't use wind-up lego motors and put the axle on a slant to travel around the obstacle? The rules never mention specifically that you have to use batteries. My school isn't going to be able to get motors but we have plenty of lego pieces lying around

Take a look at the first sentence of the rules:

DESCRIPTION: Teams construct a vehicle that uses electrical energy as its means of propulsion, quickly travels a specified distance, and stops as close as possible to the Finish Dot.

[WillyG]

Hey guys I'm just curious: what width of a track would you recommend testing on? What do you think will be the minimum at most competition?

[scifipi]

How would I make the buggy turn?

[scifipi]

Maybe you could make it jump instead!

Just a thought.

I was thinking that since there's no height restriction, maybe you could put it on "stilts", where the chassis of the buggy passes over the bucket while the wheels pass on either side of it. It would eliminate the turning issue, but you'd have to have it aligned exactly right (because the max width of the buggy is 30 cm, while the bucket is 25-27 cm in diameter), otherwise it would just run into the bucket.

That sounded like a great idea! Until I realized that some buckets will probably have sides that tilt outward a little, making the whole thing wider than the bottom.

A great idea though? Anyone trying it? (not me!)

[psychodragon_98]

i wish! we have a new school, so this is the second year. we had diddly squat last year, but we have a braking system finally worked out. and its a good one. especially for the three wheel design we have.

[SLM]

How would I make the buggy turn?

1. The wheels on one side of the buggy having bigger diameter than the wheels on the other side.
2. Independent motors for the left and right wheels where one motor has a slower speed than the other one.

[ichaelm]

Or, you could make the axles not parallel.