omni drive vs tank
 

which kind of mobility is every1 thinking of. a good idea that came up today while we were brainstorming was a tank mobility any other ideas??

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

tank treads are WAYYYYY too slow for this game. you gotta go with 4 wheel tank drive. relatively good speed and good push power and easy to do, especially for a rookie team.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

Typical answer but not always the truth. You can get high speeds with treads if you have the proper gear ratio. I recall team 61 (i think) moving with great speeds in 04 competition and team 180's old tread system to be very powerful. But be sure to do the engineering before the season starts, or you might run out of time like our team did in 03 and had some serious engineering flaws that we found out on the first day of competition.

We are going 6x6 for this years game....

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

ya, i agree, but if its your rookie year treads are too complicated. lots to go wrong, shreading treads, loss of limbs, lots of moving parts(if one fails all the rest can). i mean its just best to keep it simple for your first year, dont go for the gold right away, learn it, then conquer it.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

Just like last year, team 1318 is going to use a 6-wheel drive system. It worked well then, it should work well now.

However, this year we'll probably use pneumatic tires to get more tread on the diamond plating, instead of the kitbot ones like last year.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

You'll want to consider that very, very carefully.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

we were thinking of using a diamond shaped base with a tank drive that would be centered in the middle of the diamond. this way it'd be harder for people to push us because to get maximum area they would have to hit a slanted side which we could still keep driving forward than, however first my frown on the idea that the corner would be in the front of our robot and thus creating a spear like robot

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

You can't make diamond shaped sides anymore, they have to be within 10 degrees of vertical as the rules state here

<R04> "Wedge” robots are not allowed. Robots must be designed so that interaction with other robots results in
pushing rather than tipping or lifting. Neither offensive nor defensive wedges are allowed. All parts of a
robot between 0 and 8.5 inches from the ground (the top of the bumper zone – see Rule <R35>) that might
push against another robot must be within 10 degrees of vertical. Devices deployed outside the robot's
footprint should be designed to avoid wedging. If a mechanism or an appendage (a ball harvester, for
example) becomes a wedge that interferes with other robots, penalties, disabling, or disqualification can occur
depending on the severity of the infraction.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

I believe that the rule is refereeing to the sides of your robot. So that you cannot tip another bot. I do not believe that there is any restriction to the actual shape the bot looking down at it. I dont know if that made any sense to any of you all but it did to me....

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

it all depends on your robot and what roles you want to play on the field. A holonomic or mechanum drive system is going to have problems with the ramp unless you create some sort of suspension, although they will be the most agile and mobile in the open field.
A tank drive will have tons of traction, and be awesome for the ramp/platform, but it may not possess the maneuverability to an omni-drive in certain situations in the open field, or chase bouncing balls.
Swerve drive may be a nice solution to these problems, but those can be fairly hard to build.

There are many many other factors that tie into this, what kind of ball shooting are you employing, will you shoot on the move, will you shoot at all, etc etc etc

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

This game needs both speed and power. So you need to come up with a drive system that maximizes both. though accuracy is needed somewhat if your planning on manually aiming to shoot.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

Our team, 1257 had a fully fuctional holonomic drive last year. It was quickly decided that its not a good choice for this game. Defensivly, the only thing to do other then stand in front of the lower goal is to ram like hell, and you just dont get any traction with the omniwheels. Also lets just say there isnt a chance in hell of a holonomic drivetrain making it up that ramp.

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

do you need me to show you video's? they are not slow so don't say they are.. I will show you video's of how fast and how POWERFULL they are

2004 Mayhem on the Merrimack Fastest Robot Award!

But remember tank treads are slow... Time for you to get your facts straight :(

Yes.. Just look at my signature.. Won a lot of compitions this year..

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

tank treads are def not slow, but honestly there is no need for them in this years game. Theres no terrian obstacles other then the 30 degree ramp which shouldnt be a problem to get up. i would go 6 wheel drive and just chain the wheels

Re: omni drive vs tank
 

defense? yeah that's why you need them to push other robots around from scoring.