Mecanum wheel intake club
 

Piggy-backing on a few recent threads about "clubs", which teams have used mecanum wheels to collect/intake the ball? I have noticed a few teams using mecanum wheels on their intake, including:
1986 Team Titanium
my own team:Spectrum 3847
And team 2587 the Discobots

Who else has used these wheels to intake the ball?

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

I think 180 does.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

Quoted for truth.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

We had a noticeable improvement in our intake after adding mecanum's in Orlando.

Just going to leave this here:

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

#MecanumsonEinstien

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

We switched to mecanums on the intake shortly before our first regional and never looked back.

A significant amount of design and prototyping time was spent trying to perfect geometry which would allow for a ball to center itself inside our claw. We tried to get the ball to roll into the claw from as many possible angles as we could. On bag day with blue Banebots wheels, we got the ball to end up in the robot rolled in from about 50 degrees off center in either direction.

We did encounter some minor problems. The competition intake would get the ball in the claw, but between some geometry changes and the location d the punch we could not center the ball in the claw as quickly as we wanted. This was the primary motivation for the change, but extra pickup was also a nice factor.

Once we switched to mecanums, the ball could enter the intake from literally any angle, including completely sideways (90+ degrees off center) and the ball would end up centered in the intake in less than a second. The mecanums had just as good of a grip as the Banebots wheels. We left two small traction wheels on in the center of the claw which actually provide the grip on the ball once properly seated, so we didn't compromise our ability to hold the ball. All in all, it's probably the single best upgrade we've made, at least in terms of effort to reward ratio.

Mecanums on the intake work. Use them!

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

Told ya...

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

Your team number's on the robot for a reason, buddy.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

We totally copied Spectrum as soon as we saw their reveal video. Never looked back. Thanks.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

This is the one and hopefully only time 1625 has mecanum on our bot :rolleyes: Hill Toppers do as well

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

We started calling them collector wheels. We try to avoid using the m word it has such a bad reputation. "Collector Wheels" let us sleep easy at night. :)

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

1732 checking in to the Mecanum intake club. We have mecanums on the corners and some grippy VEXPro wheels closer to the middle. We started with just the grippy wheels but really like the mecanums. Thanks Spectrum!

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

We added mecum wheels to our intake at New-york Tech Valley.

I believe 2590 Nemesis also has a mecum intake.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

Through watching 1986's robot reveal video and judging on how well they've done this season, my teammate and I are fangirling. HARD. We know mecanum has its drawbacks on a drive train, but on a pickup it's genius. Very well done.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

I thought that was for the CF spring powered linear shooter :P


125's mecanum collector was originally a joke. But then we found that packaging a CD7 intake was a pain in the butt and thought, wonder if it'll work. Turns out it does. Really well.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

Team 1619 has had mecanums on our intake since before our first event and they have been awesome. Especially given our intake structure, they increase our collection "zone" by over a foot!

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

And 1986 and 1625. :) I'm not sure who had them first or where exactly our inspiration came from, but seeing 1986 and talking with 1625 also played a role in our decision to try them out and I'm very glad we did.

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

From what we can tell, we were the first ones to publish there use on intakes. We're also pretty sure people were using them either before us or right around the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if they were independently developed by 4 or 5 teams (3847, 125, 1986, not sure how long the list is).

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

I think it all happened for most around the same time. We knew other top teams would have it we were just curious on how many? I really expected it to catch on for teams even if their design constraints didn't fit it necessarily. It all just kind of came together for the best! :]

Re: Mecanum wheel intake club
 

I'm surprised that more teams haven't done it yet. They're a pretty cheap way to upgrade any wheel collector.