Oh wow, it has been nearly four months since I wrote my last blog.
It has been a repeat of me thinking of writing another blog, then being hindered by school work, robotics work, and well, the urge to rest and play video games. So many things happened during these four months and I will cover all of them in the following days or weeks (hopefully not months).
Around November, I had the urge to change my motor. It was very loud and janky, and I thought it was bad overall. Back then, I thought one of the biggest factors of a strong robot was a fast motor. The motor was a TT motor 120:1, which can be purchased here (I would only recommend this motor for starters).
https://www.daisen-netstore.com/shopdetail/000000000142/ct13/page1/order/
However, my robotics coach did not care about the motors as much as I did, so I changed it myself. I changed it to a more proper motor, which can be purchased here:
https://www.daisen-netstore.com/shopdetail/000000000195/ct13/page1/order/
The motor had a 30:1 gear ratio, which I thought was a good thing, as from my research, I learned that a smaller gear ratio = a faster motor. However, I encountered a problem, which is that it simply does not fit my robot. Not only do the tires not touch the ground due to how thick the motor is, but the angel ring that would be added later won't fit as well.
I needed to abandon this motor, so I bought a TT motor, but with a 30:1 gear ratio. It looked very similar to the original motor, so I thought my coach would not notice. However, he noticed the overly quiet sound and he found out. Upon finding out, he stated that though a smaller gear ratio may sound good, it will produce very little torque and thus weaker motor force. This will be an insanely big disadvantage during soccer matches since if an enemy robot is pushing my robot with the weaker motor, it will easily be overpowered.
To conclude, I put on the original motors back. Though it was again jankier, I felt that it was way stronger, and actually faster than the 30:1 TT motor. I am still looking forward to changing the motor, but perhaps I would not prioritize it right now.
Thank you for reading!