Drive Practice?
 

Im a driver much in need of drive practice. We are using mecanum wheels for the first time this year and the only drive practice I have is our first competition. The only time I'll get with the comp bot will be any left over time during our unbag periods. Does anyone have a way of getting drive practice without using the comp bot?

Re: Drive Practice?
 

A few ideas come to mind, probably too late for you this year.

You can budget next year to build two copies of the robot. One for competition, another for practicing even while the official robot is in the bag.

Next year, you'll also be able to use this year's drivetrain to practice with (assuming you choose to use the same drive train for next year's game).

At the competition there will be practice matches, and when not queued for those, there should be little side practice areas that you can sign up a timeslot for and/or wait in a first-come, first-serve line to get in.

Our team had to bag an incomplete robot so our first day at our first competition was a mad scramble to get it finished. We missed many of our practice sessions and as a result had a ... shall we say "challenging" time during our qualification matches!

Good luck!

Re: Drive Practice?
 

If your driving with a game controller one way to practice at least getting the understanding of mecanum is play some games that control the same way.
One that comes to mind is the ghost in halo drove the same way and has drift to it to overcome. Or try to play old versions of catalyst. One thing I consider hard with mecanum is being able to keep an eye on orientation and drive without having to pay attention to the controller.

Re: Drive Practice?
 

If you go super early to your next event, you could get those first few hours on thursday to drive around, maybe on the field or in the pits/open space. Otherwise you could ask another team to help you out and loan your team an old chassis all you have to do is refit it with wheels of your choice and drive away. Michigan teams have a strong history of building multiple bots per year and I bet someone nearby could loan you one if not this year's version previous years.

Re: Drive Practice?
 

Filler Line, Filler Line, Filler Line. Not quite as good at district events with their limited practice slots, but at any regional that has the room there will be a filler line. Get fully passed at inspection, go wait in that. Any practice matches that don't have 6 teams can (and will) pull from the filler line. Great way to get some extra practice if it's available.

Re: Drive Practice?
 

It would be ideal to get another mecnum drive train, like other have said, but if all else fails you can also think through scenarios in your head. Say you have a stack on your bot witch ads weight to the front and you want to strafe left. Reason your way through this problem. If you just give the command to strafe left the bot will tend to be slower on the front of the bot(more weight from totes) So you will have to add in some left rotation to compensate.

Just thinking through things like this will make you a much better driver.

Re: Drive Practice?
 

If possible, your best bet would be to find another bot... Does another team near you have an old robot with mechanum drive? Can you purchase enough parts to build a "box on wheels" with mechanum?

Re: Drive Practice?
 

The short answer is: No.

Everything about driving your bot depends upon how it has been programmed. You can program the drive to act like other wheels, with the benefit of strafing, or the programmers could have set up field oriented driving (push the stick forward, and the robot moves away from you, regardless of its orientation).

Also, has the mecanum drive been tuned? Does strafing go left/right, or is there some drift? If you have not practiced much with the bot, I presume that stuff has not yet been worked out.

How fast your bot accelerates, turns, and travels over the step. How easy it is to pick-up and manipulate Totes and RC's. How easy is it to align with the Chute. That is all bot dependent, and you can only get that with your bot, or with a practice bot that is similar to your bot.

Re: Drive Practice?
 

One thing we did is to build a cheap and simple "Mecanum bot" which really is a piece of plywood with metal tubing on each side and some churro stock holding it together. It's our offseason programming test bot, but you guys could benefit from a simple drivebase to test with. Obviously this would be something you would do in between competitions, or as an off season project.

Basically just build up a frame with a plywood board for electronics, and build some simple gearboxes/whatever you have lying around or in the closet to hold your wheels on. Like 1114 did here: