Re: 935 as of last night
 

as a quick rule of thumb to putting the mecanums wheels on the right way is that the rollers should face towards the middle making a X

Re: 935 as of last night
 

Wow, that's beautiful. Seeing as everyone is posting pictures of their mechanum bots, I'll have to get one of our mechanum t-shirt shooter.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

You mean this one?



The frame looks a bit stiff if you ask me...

Re: 935 as of last night
 

That if one HUGE launcher!!! You are going to use up you air really fast unless you refill on board. Is it directly connected to the reserve tank or do you have a firing tank in between?

Re: 935 as of last night
 

i love that you used a vex controller on the t-shirt launcher

Re: 935 as of last night
 

We can get about six shots off on one tank of air (filled to 125 psi). I'm not sure of the specifics on the air setup, as I was not on the build team.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

What's the intended implication here?

Re: 935 as of last night
 

I think he's getting at the fact that if the frame flexes a little, it can cause the whole robot to go in a different direction than intended, and we don't have a suspension to ensure even traction for all the wheels.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

very nice, my favorite part are the handles that are built in. I wish more teams would think of lifting when they design their bots.




A general question to prototypers: Why do you pocket your plates? I understand that for competition where weight is a factor but for prototyping it seems a bit excessive.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

My theory: It lets them know if they're being too conservative with it or not. If you slam your frame into fifty cinderblocks without so much as a ding, perhaps you can afford to get a little crazier with it for the competition robot. But if your robot caves in by so much as breathing on it the wrong way, then it's time to dial it back.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

Even in prototypes weight is always an issue. How much material can we eliminate? How will the drive react to the frame? With the ablity to download autodesk files to CAM and to estimate weight with autodesk this really helps us in not always starting over completely at times.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

Can you get the same holonomic motion with the mechanums
as you can with the omniwheels?
Our programmer is more than eager to program a holonomic robot,
and we weren't sure if mechanums would give us the same ability.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

Yeah, thats why theres so much of a hype. Truely Holonomic drive, and a bit more resistance without special configurations. And they look cooler :) .

Re: 935 as of last night
 

As I drool over the beautiful chassis and envy the Mecanum maneuverability, I have to wonder how your design will change for competition if FIRST was to say throw us a curve ball and not give us 4 CIMs this year?

2004 - 2 CIMs
2005 - 4 CIMs
2006 - 2 CIMs in the kit and you were allowed to buy 2 more
2007 - ?????

I love the chassis and applaud the development as practice and learning experience for your team but I never make any assumptions about the KOP or the rules until after we inventory our kit and read the rules twice after kick off.

Re: 935 as of last night
 

I'm pretty sure most teams (i know mine is) are building mecanum robots to experiment, get used to the setup if they decide to use it, or just for fun. If the rules don't provide for such a system, then it just won't be used.