Originally Posted by Creator Mat (Post 899539)

Edit: We also want to go over the bump. I also feel that the Omni wheels would not have enough traction to be able to go over the bump

Originally Posted by Creator Mat (Post 899539)

Edit: We also want to go over the bump. I also feel that the Omni wheels would not have enough traction to be able to go over the bump

Originally Posted by Geek 2.0 (Post 899653)

I am having a similar problem, only it's the mentors wanting to use a 6WD 2 gearbox design and a handful of students wanting to use holonomic, and the prototype was built by a mentor. What ever happened to student decisions?

Originally Posted by Creator Mat (Post 899510)

Can anyone who has experience driving a holonomic, playing against a holonomic, or has an opionon on the subject give a testimonial about how swerve is better than Holonomic and the making of a swerve drive is the way our team should go.

Originally Posted by Creator Mat

We also want to go over the bump. I also feel that the Omni wheels would not have enough traction to be able to go over the bump.

Originally Posted by Geek 2.0

Does holonomic really lose all that much traction? What if you use braking on the Jaguars? It seems that it wouldn't be too bad, the only thing hindering you is the hard plastic of the wheels.

Originally Posted by StevenB (Post 899712)

First, a picky technical note:
Holonomic is a general term used to describe a system that can be controlled in all of its degrees of freedom [1]. For robot drivetrains, this implies the ability to move in two dimensions. A swerve drive, mecanum drive (jester drive, airtrax), and omnidrive (kiwi drive) are all examples of holonomic drivetrains. They allow movement in both dimensions.
I'm going to assume that my "holonimic drive" you are referring to mecanum drive.

Second, there are major advantages and disadvantages to both swerve drive and mecanum drive. I'm not trying to be rude, but please don't come to this community to enlist support for your side. Take a look around these forums; you'll see that the relative merits of these drivetrains have been discussed numerous times before.

I know you honestly believe that swerve drive is the right way to go. In terms of field capability, you're probably right. But there are a host of other factors, most notably complexity, weight, and manufacturing time, which all affect the decision. And in the end, those factors are actually more important.
There will be great swerve drive robots this year. But there will also be some great mecanum drive robots, and some great omni drive robots. There will even be some great robots that use the kitbot drive train. An awesome drive train might help, but solid ball handling and hanging capability will determine how you do. Don't let yourself think that your drivetrain choice is going to doom your season.

Feel? The only way to know is to try it. Honestly, I'd be interested to see what happens - 2359 is asking many of the same questions.


Yes. Even if you have wheels with as much traction as any other drive system, you inherently lose between 50% and 71% of your power. Take a look at this paper for an explanation why.

Originally Posted by Geek 2.0 (Post 899725)

Also, you would lose the 50%-71% of power, but not traction, so people pushing you shouldn't be too harsh if your wheels are locked. Given you won't have as much power pushing back.

Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 899670)

An important thing to consider here, and it speaks volumes about your team's personality, is the following: Is it an adult decision, a student decision, or a team decision?

Originally Posted by StevenB (Post 899740)

I hesitate to say you lose traction, because your wheels may still have the same grip on the carpet. But even if you lock your wheels, you only have a fraction of your "pushing resistance force". Unless you have a way to physically lock or articulate the rollers as describe in the paper I linked above, up to half of your traction is wasted on rollers that simply spin.

Take a square robot with one omniwheel (rollers perpendicular to the drive direction) on each side. To move forward, two wheels are doing the work, and two wheels are spinning their rollers and contributing nothing. The scenario is identical if we brake our wheels and another robot tries to push us. Two wheels will give us traction on the carpet, but the other two give us nothing.

If the robot moves diagonally, all four wheels move, but all of the rollers spin some. This results in a 1/(sqrt(2)) thing, which is where I get 71% power/traction.