Check out this amazing tank track system my son’s robotics team designed and fabricated on a Glowforge this weekend. Made from 7mm delrin. A lot of design, testing (they cut and built the whole thing in draft board and made some key discoveries and improvements before cutting in Delrin) and labor went into this. Should be more than robust enough to survive the entire season of First Tech Challenge.
Delrin is definitely the material for this. I’ve been watching Ivan Miranda’s channel on YouTube and his 3D printed treads are not quite strong enough. Very nice.
Considering the amount of money some teams invest in their drive system, this is a bargain. It was a considerable investment on their part, and highly risky given their current team finances but, they seem to be making good decisions so far. The drive system is their highest priority (scrum) and so far it’s working really well. I’m guessing they’ll have both tracks and their chassis done and driving on the play field next weekend.
Nothing sticks to delrin (well, maybe there’s some obscure glue that works but I’m not aware of it). As was said by AhnoldZ, the tracks are held together with 50mm M4 screws. The yellow bands are latex rubber tube that sits in groves in the track to provide grip.
Pretty sure they’d eat gummy worms for breakfast too, if they had any money left over to buy a few. Also, thank you for the compliment. They are a highly motivated group of kids.
