Robo-Cross B

[ddudealex1]

The what robot?

[computernerd4826]

i think it is this-
http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.p ... t-id=70162

[haven chuck]

Yes, that is the robot. So is anybody else using it?

[computernerd4826]

i havent seen a single one at any of the competitions this year or last year, and im not using it

[WrightStuffMonster]

And we consistantly get perfect scores at 2:00

That should be good enough for a medal at nationals. I have heard of better than that, but not by much. I personally do not think its possible to go under about 1:20 with any degree of consistency but then again I have been wrong many times before.

[Flavorflav]

Yes, that is the robot. So is anybody else using it?

You need to be very careful using Tamiya stuff. It is really cheap, but it's all motors, not servos, and there are no clutches. This means if you hold the lever down a split second too long and your arm hits a part of the frame, your bot will literally begin to tear itself apart.

[nanowhale]

I used lego mindstorms and it is a lot easier to control and if you make sure that the pieces are well intact then it is really sturdy.

[haven chuck]

We were having troubles with the Tamiya early on, but now that weve got it working it is much easier than Vex and Mindstorms, though what Flavorfalv said hopefully wont happen

[Flavorflav]

It won't, as long as you are careful never to run past the operating range. Most importantly, do not let your teammates play with it! That's what we did three years ago, and that's how I know.

[gh]

Yes, I used the Tamiya set for Robo-Billiards from waaay back, and if you weren't careful, you could do something like that. The push rivets, hex/friction fit hubs, and gravity will tend to prevent the robot from doing too much damage to itself though; the parts don't break and the gears won't strip.

However, it's a nice cheap set to cut your teeth on. You can do a lot with it (and be better than most Vex bots, probably). However, the electronics are rather limited, but dead simple. It has an open-loop control box which is just four switches on two spring-loaded joysticks. It basically just gives voltage from the batteries (two cells, I think: 3V) straight to the motors and the switches just reverse the direction of the current.

I mean, the lack of any electronics makes the set cheap ($50 or so, I believe) and well suited for a team that just wants to get started with a robot, since there's no fiddling with crystals, radios, or motor controllers and such. On the other hand, it might be too limited for a team that actually wants to win, since the build block parts are very simple (but quite rugged). Still, Tamiya components (motor gearboxes, dual motor drives, tank track set) used to be used on a lot of good robots back in the day, because they're cheap, sturdy, and functional. It was just that people didn't make ENTIRE winning robots from Tamiya components because, well, you couldn't.