The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

It seemed to me that it was difficult for robots with holonomic drive trains to be succesful this year. Though these robots may have been more maneuvarable, the loss of traction often greatly hindered their robot. For example, I have seen a robot at sac and and svr which had an excellent shooter and ballpickup mechanism, but its omniwheels made it too easy to defend and psuh around. While I think these drivetrains are as cool as the next guy, I felt that these designs were at a disadvantage inthis years game.

My question is this: Has anyone seen a robot effectively use its holonomic drivetrain to an advantage? If so do you have any videos or pictures? What drive system did they use? ie mechanum, omniwheel, swivel, kiwi And to the teams which decided to use such drive train systems, why did you choose to use them, other than the engineering experience and "cool" factor?

please note that this post is not intended to be offensive to any teams which have used such drive trains. I am interested in these drive trains myself, and I was wondering what was some of the thinking behind using these drives in this years games.

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

No offense taken here as we built an omni-wheel system this year looking for manuverability knowing that we may pay the price with defense and ramp climbing.

We play this weekend at LSR, so the proof will be there for us and then at Atlanta. I'd like to dialogue with any all teams using a holonomic drive this year as we do our own assesment. Eventually, we'd like to crab :cool:

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Off topic but somewhat related. How many teams did you see at your two regionals that used a traction wheel set up in the rear with casters in the front? I would say that this set-up has just as much suseptability to a defensive robot yet not gain as much in the area of manuverability. ...

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Speaking from experience at the Wisonsin regional, a holonomic was definitely at a disadvantage this year. We were pushed and shoved around, and on top of that our drive failed so that we couldn't even drive straight anymore. (We shot at the opponent's goal in autonomous once after executing a neat ground-loop :) )

Looks like the 4 and 6-wheel drives won out this year, even though holonomic's sooo much cooler. :)

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

i have also seen this at many regionals. a robot with holonomic drive would have to be so fast that a 4wd or 6wd bot could not stop you. think of Hot team 67 last year (see below). it was similar drive, i witnessed the robot do a pick and roll maneuver that you see in basketball with. you need to have holonomic drive perfectly right to have it work effectively.

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Though I think using a holonomic drive, if used efficiently, you an have a great advantage to the opponent. But in the case of this years game I think a team would just get pushed around too much. Unless of course one could find omni wheels with some traction on the rollers.

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Don't forget the tank tread robots. I think 1114 and 1503, among others, have proven their effectiveness, especially when it comes to staying in one place for shooting under duress.

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

team 830, my team, made a holonomic robot this year, and I think that the advantages have helped more than the disadvantages. Having it eliminates the need for a turret, since we have code that will auto rotate the base to allign the camera with the shooter, and we can also play an Allen Iverson or Rip Hamilton style offense that allows for quick shots, even if we have to move around a little bit after making 2 or 3. Additionally, if we do get in the right range, we can quickly posisiton and make many shots in a row. We were one of four holonomic robots at waterloo, and I think we were among the best of the overall competition. In the eliminations we found ways to score against the #3 alliance (who ended up as regional finalists ) and we actually scored almost all the points for our alliance, inluding 36 in match.

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

I agree. Omni wheels would be fantastic this year to zip around the field and collect balls rapidly, but, once you have to stop/slow-down to deliver the balls to the center goal, you're at a huge disadvantage. I've used them in the past on a different team in 2001 when no pushing was involved, and with great success. Perhaps next year...

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Congratulations to 830 on a great regional and Autodesk Visualization Award at Waterloo!

Another holonomic team (854) was 8th alliance captain, picking 830 and 1189 (J&J Sportsmanship). My own team (931) also had holonomic drive, won the Saturday Judges Award, and was part of the 5th alliance along with 1680 (the third Niagara triplet) and 1901 (GMID and Rookie Inspiration). So holonomic teams were well recognized and in good company; however, I don't think any advanced to the semifinals.

I don't recall which other team had holonomic drive at Waterloo. Any help?

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

859 was the other Holonomic at Waterloo. It was the one with the dragon painted on the Hopper

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Thanks! How could I forget the team from West Virginia? They helped 1846 and 772 really scare the 2nd alliance in QF3.

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Our team has an omni-drive robot this year. We are usnig our own form of the mechanum wheels. So far(just in our test runs before ship day) it seemed to work really well. The way our wheels are designed, we have a good pushing ability and also it is fairly hard to push us around. We are also able to make it up the ramp(or at least we are pretty sure we can). We leave to go to Las Vegas tomarrow so we will know for sure how well our drive train works.

Josh
Team Driver/Designer

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

Just to throw my 2 cent's in... This year has been different than many other years in that you need the fine movements to shoot the balls, and the brute pushing force. In the end I think that because there are so many machines on the field at once, and you will be pushed at some point. It is better to have a quick machine that has a drive system that will facilitate power over finesse. The team I worked with, 388 had the omni system, it worked well, but when it came to side blows, the aim was gone... I know I'm going to start a riot by saying this, but personally I see no use of holonomic systems in the games thus far. Reason: there is too much pushing for a machine to not move so much so that fine movement or aim can not be lost by collisions from other machines. So until the point where we are in a maze and can not touch the sides, I don't see a good use of the system. But crab drive is another story, there you do have more traction when being pushed. My 2 cents, take it or leave it...

mark

Re: The advantage of holonomic drivetrains
 

While I origianally wanted omni drive we decided against it for a strong drive train to play defense with.

Team 40 had an extremely effective shooter using mecanum wheels (jester drive) They were very easy to push around but required constant attention because they could quickly line up and shoot if they were left alone. The biggest advantage to their drive was their multiple Auto modes they often evaded defensive bots and scored 7+ balls this combined with very smart driving and strategy seeded them 3rd and got them all the way to the finals in Boston.

213 also used omni drive very effectively to make one of the best side goal dumpers that I saw in boston and manchester they were very difficult to defend and often dumped 20 balls with no problem.