Re: Mecanum vs The Barrier
 

If you're absolutely set on using mec wheels, but are worried about the wheels not holding up under the repeated stress of climbing, i definitely recommend making your own. in 2010 we made our own and the process was repetitive and a little bit tedious but fairly simple, and if you do them the same way we made ours, they'll be very sturdy. another bonus is that you can cast the rubber for the rollers in your own team color and have the hubs galvanized to look pretty also. if you want something to reference, you can look at my team's wheels on our website (http://www.roboteknix.com/gallery/?&...71623918928449) or even look further in the past: in 2006, with the game Aim High, team 357 made their own mecanum wheels that they dubbed "Jester Wheels".

Just food for thought if you have a little time and patience on your hands.

Re: Mecanum vs The Barrier
 

video proof of Mecs driving up and balancing on this year's bridge.

Re: Mecanum vs The Barrier
 

Getting off it is a problem with our 2011 bot, though, because it's so top- and front-heavy (it almost tips over each time we drive off).

Re: Mecanum vs The Barrier
 

so you were the ones that made those (saw the pic on wikipedia)... very nice!

if you have CNC access or at least a very skilled machinist, I guess you can make those... not for the faint of heart I'd say.

Re: Mecanum vs The Barrier
 

If you'd like to play around with the numbers, there's a small 16-bit mec roller design app (sorry, won't run on 64-bit Windows) at this page. Click on the "2011-09-30a mecanum roller design calculator " download link.

You enter desired wheel radius, roller center radius, and number of rollers, and you get the information shown in the attached screenshot, plus an XY data file of the required roller profile. It's easy to iterate to try different solutions. The solutions are for a "bumpless" mec: the wheel circumference is circular with no gaps.