[EricH]

I'm going to throw a wrench into the works.

Back in 2005, 330 had this debate a bit ourselves. We decided to work a compromise: We'd build our frame to run both (quite easy to do) and rig it with 6WD and rig our kit frame with mecanum (6" fully nylon wheels, KOP trannies from that time frame--single speed, single CIM). At that time, our 2003 robot was still operational, so we decided to test against that (4WD, 2-speed, drill motor transmissions).

We could not beat the 4WD in speed. We could not get around it for shooting a gap between two goals. I distinctly remember the mecanum losing a push test, and after the first 5-10 seconds, it wasn't a contest! If we'd been hit trying to cap, we'd have lost position, every time we took a hit. We had trouble strafing with an off-balance load (tetra on a pole). If I had video, I'd post it. Just on motors, we should have been able to push the 2003 robot, 4 CIMs versus 2 drill motors, roughly equal weights.

The 6WD stayed on the competition robot. To this day, 330 has not done a competition mecanum. Not because we're scared to, but because the GDC has yet to give us a game where it's an advantage given our play style. The only competition omni-directional drive we've ever done was a 6WD rotational drivebase on our 2009 robot, because it fit a key part of our game plan (avoid getting pinned if possible).

Oh, and one other thing: At that point, we had two years of experience with small-scale mecanum, both programming and hardware.