Mecanum Wheels
 

What do you think about the use of Mecanum Wheels? Is that important, or unnecessary?

Re: Mecanum Wheels
 

Mecanums are more trouble than they are worth. Getting a robot to 120 lbs is a challenge for most teams, let alone balancing that load for the mecanums to function properly. I would tell a team to use the kit bot drivetrain way before I would tell them to use mecanums (belts and all).

Re: Mecanum Wheels
 

My personal opinion on mecanum wheels is based on a few things.
1. Minimum of four motors used for omnidirectional movement. THAT IS AMAZING. The only drive train I have seen that gets the same amount of movement as mecanum with less motors is something like the Tri-Lambda drive base.
2. Between the omni directional movement and rotation if designed properly mecanum (as well as swerve) has the best pathing options. You can be at the orientation you need to be when you get there which saves time and this years game is all about dat resource management though.
3. This is kind of a double edged sword you got going on but the performance on a mecanum is noticeably better in regards to responsiveness when you add weight to it in the right spot. This means through the match as you get riskier and riskier stacks that are taller and taller the drive base passively adjusts for that.

Re: Mecanum Wheels
 

If you haven't used them before, I'd caution against learning how to implement them now. Focus on the more important aspects of your robot. Drivetrain isn't going to necessarily win this challenge.