Six or four wheels

[foxdend296]

Who has an opinion on wether to use six or four wheels . does putting more weight on four wheels work better than equal weight on six?? any help would be appreciated.

[landon2345]

Our team has been discussing this recently. At the moment we are considering a 4-wheel tank drive but may move to six. After looking over threads on this site I think that it may not make much of a difference. Friction is dependent upon force so putting more wheels divides the amount of force exerted by the robot due to gravity by the number of wheels. However, is there a difference between friction and traction? One of my teammates mentioned "dually?" trucks (pickups with four wheels on the back axle - two on each side). He was talking about how the increase in traction allowed it to pull more weight whereas a pickup with the same engine and only 2 wheels on the back axle would have its tires slip and would not be able to pull a heavy load.

Please note. I am still a noob.

Help? Any thoughts?

[Starke]

This is already being discussed here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71417&highlight=six+four+wheels). Please search before you post. Thanks!

[aaeamdar]

here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71417&highlight=six+four+wheels). Please search before you post. Thanks![/QUOTE]

Starke,

The link you provided only discusses the physics of traction, while the OP is asking for a more general discussion.

To answer your original question, foxdend, there is no best solution for every team. Some teams will have greater access to technical mentors, machine shops, money for parts, etc., that will give them options that teams without these resources simply don't have. That said, here is my recommendation: unless you have *really* solid grounds to think that six wheels will provide a significant maneuverability advantage, stick to four. Adding two extra wheels (unnecessarily) complicates your drive train. First, with six wheels, keeping all the wheels level is an issue. Second, you have to decide which wheels to drive, and if it's all of them, that's yet more stuff to do for your drive train/chassis team. So short answer, stick to four wheels.

Best of luck this year,
Paul

[QUOTE=Starke340;797569]This is already being discussed

[MrForbes]

One of my teammates mentioned "dually?" trucks (pickups with four wheels on the back axle - two on each side). He was talking about how the increase in traction allowed it to pull more weight whereas a pickup with the same engine and only 2 wheels on the back axle would have its tires slip and would not be able to pull a heavy load.

Trucks use dual wheels because each tire can only carry a limited amount of weight, and using two tires next to each other doubles the load capacity of the truck (assuming the axle, springs, etc are strong enough).

[megaman_22201]

please everyone keep in mind that when you are making design decisions you take into account that in the game you will ALWAYS have a trailer attached to your robot in the matches.

this will add an extra 40 pounds to your robot AND an extra set of wheels.

hope this proves useful to the teams that read this ^_^

-Avinesh-
-Team 1778-