Best Drive system
 

Hay what up folks was wondering what you guys think would be the best drive system to use this year. I personally would chose threads because you will get a lot of grip "traction" on the carpet, and its pretty easy to control. What do you guys thing.

Re: Best Drive system
 

In my experience, treads are more trouble than they are worth. You can get a niiiiice amount of traction using regular wheels.

Re: Best Drive system
 

We have used treads for the past four years, and from my opinion I can safely say that using treads this year will not give us a competitive advantage and we are going to use the pneumatic wheels. There are not obstacles or slopes climb or slippery surfaces to drive on.

Re: Best Drive system
 

Personally, i would support tread system or 6 wheel drive. but you can make EVERY single drive work if you do it right.

-Arefin.

Re: Best Drive system
 

I'm not sure if you witnessed the horrendus failure of several robots last year due to pneumatic wheels (I probably should note that many others had great success), but if you do it, do it right. Either use only two pneumatic wheels, or keep the track width much wider than the wheelbase is long, or have 6 wheels sith the center ones lower. In a standard 4x4 configuration, a pneumatic wheeled robot may hop and jump all over the place. I'm not saying pneumatic wheels are bad, I'm just saying make sure you really want them, and all the inherent problems that may come with them.

Re: Best Drive system
 

You mean the problems that become apparent (such as turning) when you use tracks and your robot is longer than it is wide (IE the tracks are on the long side of the robot vs. the shorter side)? If so, we think we will be all set by using a 6 wheel drive and lowering the center wheel by half an inch or so (not a final number).

Re: Best Drive system
 

We like to keep things simple yet maneuverable, so we will be going with a tank-steer 4WD this year. Although four wheels may not have as much contact with the ground as treads, we feel that if we obtain wheels with a high friction coefficient, we can achieve almost as much traction, with less scrub.

We have worked with treads before, and they did not work out well for us. We tried to counter our issues with air rides, however, problems still came up.

At any rate, with the 4WD drive we should be able to have a decent turning radius, which will lead to greater maneuverability, which in turn will allow us to go around the goals and any of the other 5 robots with ease :) .

Re: Best Drive system
 

um just to make sure, higher coefficient of friction=more scrub if non 2wd or omnied. and if you use tank steer, not as in treads but as inright power and left power. not car steer with one power and one steer, turning circles should be 0. as in turn about itsself. right forward, left backwards. so turning circle should be the same. turning rate is the word you probably wanted to use.
good luck! i personally like 4wd over any drivesystem. just an opinion. and we know you guys can make serious 4wd machines.

Re: Best Drive system
 

Except if μ is not the same laterally and longitudinally; some of the nicer tread patterns allow for significant friction in the robot's customary direction of travel, but much less in the sideways direction.