Logbot
 

Would a bot like this do well?
If the picture is not clear, it's a small bot with two wheels larger than the bot, one on each end.
It would roll around and push boxes. Any comments?

How would it balance? Like a Segway? If so, have fun programming.

It doesn't need to balance, as it would not need to be "upright." It has no top, bottom, back, or front.
There is only clockwise and counterclockwise rotation of the wheels to program.

If there was no "up" alignment for the robot, it seems that the motors would just spin the core, rather than spin the wheels. If you did give it a gravitational alignment and ran into something with your wheels (say a crate,) they would get stuck on the object and again the core would spin and the robot would not move. If you did have some way to brace it against the ground or it was very heavy so that the motors would have something to push against when powering the wheels, it seems like it might be a nice, simple, compact design.

I think the ovular wheel design will be interesting.
I'm curious to see how it works in competition.

;)

Good Luck!

I see a few problems that you could probably work around in that design. I'm not sure how you'd do it, but I know it can be done...
1. A two wheeled robot is inherently unstable. Remember learning to ride a bike?

2. With wheels that large, why keep the bot that small? stability is the only advantage I can think of, but it seems that if the robot is smaller than the wheels your going to have a hard time stacking boxes...

3. The wheels might get in the way of things like box-grabbers if they are mounted forward backward as in your diagram.

4. Weight on the bot would have to be distributed reaally well...

5. I think the wheels would have to be one on each side, not front and back, to allow you to turn... this would also clear the front center of your robot for disadvantage # 3 in this post...