Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

I checked out a few of their videos, and in qual 89 of MSC there are a few moments when they cause noticeable forced lateral motion of an opposing robot.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

2052 completed 7 cycles with a mecanum drive train, so the 7-disk cycle club was not exclusively made up of tank drive robots.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

This is my opinion and should not reflect on my current or any former teams.

Before I state anything, I understand that there have been successful teams running mecanum wheels or some form of mecanum-traction combos, locally 126 and 230 have had successful seasons on these wheels.

Far too many teams pick mecanum wheels for the "cool factor" without a solid understanding of the pro's and con's of the system. I would in fact rather pick a partner running an off the self kitbot then a mecanum drive robot.

Generally speaking, drivetrain quality (like bumper quality) can be an indicator of overall robot performance or in the case of our current pre-match scouting and point of interest to determine an alliances strengths and weakness.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

At a real event.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

Are you implying that the Minnesota State Championship is not a real event because it doesn't occur during the regular season?

Realize that all robots attending the state championship must be bagged between their final event and the championship, minus a short unbag perior similar to a district championship. The event uses a real field with the FMS, an FTA, and all the workings of a standard FIRST event. It also includes only the best teams in the state, which makes it more competitive than the "real events" that happen in the state.

I'm curious as to how it isn't a "real event."

I would argue that this is an effect of the inherent bias against mecanums by all of the teams that regularly make it to Einstein more than evidence that robots with mecanum wheels are inherently worse than traditional tank drive robots.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

It's an off season event. I treat it like all other off season events. Just like post/pre season performance doesn't factor into stats in sports.

Or, put a really simple way, if it's not an official event it's not real, it's just for play.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

Yup, there's an international conspiracy of discrimination against mecanum robots by the perennial Einstein teams. These teams have foregone maximizing their utility and competitiveness by collectively (or coincidentally) making the same inefficient alliance selection decisions. Right.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

You forgot the collaboration with the Shadow Government. Clearly this is their insidious work.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

I don't think mecanum wheels are a great drivetrain. That said, I think a lot of teams who choose mecanum wheels also make other poor choices for their robot, and that is the real reason they aren't on Einstein.

The Einstein level teams pick teams who have high quality and reliable robots, which are generally made by teams who don't use mecanum wheels.

That is not meant to be a blanket statement, but my general view and opinion.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

Thanks for the complements! (We've actually won 4 regionals in a row, and 2 state championships, but who's counting :) )

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

I can see that when talking about rankings and official stats (IRI winners will never be truly be considered FRC world champions), but I think when we are discussing the subjective capabilities of a drive train, we can take into account all of the data available to us.

If I came across as conspiratorial, I apologize. I'm not trying to claim that there's a conspiracy against mecanum wheels- I'm just saying that it is unlikely that a team with mecanum wheels will make it to Einstein as a second or third (or fourth) pick by one of the perennial Einstein teams because mecanum is an automatic DNP for many of those teams.

For a mecanum team to make it to Einstein, I think they will have to be an alliance captain. That is the point I was trying to make.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

So your saying alot teams that choose X drivetrain will also choose Y gamepiece minipulation design? Are you also implying that that mechanism is inferrior? If so my eyes and statistics disagree.

Sure looks like one.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

"Quarterback X is the worst quarterback ever"

"Why?"

"Their completion percentage is crap if you include all the practice games they played in"

See the problem with including all data?

Of the teams that completed 7 cycles DURING THE COMPETITION SEASON not a single one of them was mecanum wheeled.

Why is this? If they are touted as more mobile why were these "inferior" drivetrains able to accomplish something that they were not?

What did 2052 do after the season to be able to accomplish 7 cycles? Why did they not accomplish it during the season?

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

It totally depends on the game. FIRST has given us games where defense was nonexistent (2001), and they could do so again. But every game in the three-team alliance era has involved physical contact between opposing robots in any role (scoring, defense, or counter-defense) once the level of play gets sufficiently high. In such situations, pure mecanum drives are clearly at a disadvantage. Depending on the game and the machine, perhaps good driving or superior scoring functions more than make up the difference. But in my experience this is the exception rather than the rule, especially once you get to Champs and there is a large pool of effective robots.

So I agree with you, unless FIRST really departs from recent game design trends.

Re: Penalizing mecanum wheeled robots durring alliance selection.
 

The fact that no mecanum wheeled robots on Einstein has occurred means any number of these 4 things.

1. Mecanum wheels somehow prevent teams from going to Einstein
2. Teams who chose mecanum wheels also do things that prevent them from going to Einstein
3. Teams who build robots who are capable of going to Einstein do not chose mecanum wheels
4. Einstein has gotten unlucky. This is unlikely, as we've seen an incredible number of robots on Einstein since mecanum wheels first entered FIRST, and none of them have mecanum wheels.

I will rewrite my statement with more disclaimers.

From events in a specific region that I have attended since 2011 and robot that I have seen on the field, I have seen that the majority of mecanum wheeled robots make other decisions that I do not agree with. On a world wide scale, I have yet to see more than one or two mecanum wheeled teams be very successful and claim it had to do with their mecanum wheels.

Also, in the year that mecanum was most useful (IMO, 2011), 254 won with a simple 6WD, proving that you don't need mecanum. In fact, every single Einstein match ever proves that you don't need mecanum to be a very successful team. Personally, I prefer to work with a team that realizes that something like mecanum drive is not something needed to be the very best and spent more time on other parts of their robot.

This is an opinion, and only applies to robots that have only mecanum wheels on drive.