Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

Yeah, I just saw that. Interesting....makes the traction control thing easier

Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

yeah we figured that six wheels is better

Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

To answer the original question: Theory states that any number of wheels will be exactly the same. The reason is that each wheel takes a portion of the weight, that portion gets smaller as the number of wheels increases.

Reality is not quite so clean. More wheels give you a very, very slight advantage, possibly so small as to be difficult to measure by a FIRST team. The reasons for the advantage mostly relate to your ability to maintain more of your grip even if one wheel hits a defect in the surface that momentarily reduces friction (think dust bunny), but also include some effects related to reduced deformation of the surfaces involved.

That being said, I really do not believe that anyone will measure a difference between 4 and 6 wheels that can justify the extra 2 wheels.

Six wheels have other advantages, however, that may convince some teams to use such a drivetrain.

One thing is clear - no wheel needs 2 CIM motors driving it...

Don

Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

this question came up when we were designing some of our robot and we figured out that haveing 4 wheels is better because this year, surface area isnt going to do anything. what we found is that if you have 4 wheels, more weight is going to be distributed to each wheel while when you have 6, less weight is going to be in each wheel. if you have 4, when you meet maximum weight, each wheel is going to be getting 30 lbs each. when you have 6 wheels, each wheel gets 20 lbs each. it is a 10 lbs difference in all.

Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

How does the momentum of the robot relate to this? Maximizing the weight maximises the friction, but could there some weight less than maximum that would be the optimum relationship between traction and momentum?

Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

If you add wheels to the outside of the robot that will help create traction against themselves too.

Re: Are six wheels better than four?
 

please everyone keep in mind that when you are making design decisions you take into account that in the game you will ALWAYS have a trailer attached to your robot in the matches.

this will add an extra 40 pounds to your robot AND an extra set of wheels.

be sure and design your robot to include these because it will make a difference how your robot handles on the field.

hope this proves useful to the teams that read this ^_^

-Avinesh-
-Team 1778-