Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
The deformation of both the tread and carpet under the weight of your robot would result in a contact patch larger than a single point (obviously). Because of that, different points in contact with the carpet are going to be moving at different speeds (and with different torques), meaning that there's going to be some slip in the drive of the wheel on the carpet. Depending on the radius of the hemisphere, the difference in speeds from one end of the contact patch to the other may or may not be marginal. It's possible that portions of your contact patch might interact with the carpet at closer to their coefficient of kinetic friction than their static friction.
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Hmm, you made me think of the AT&T logo when you said this. It's a sphere with ridges. Translate that to this application: if the ridges were rigid, all of the deformation would be on the floor/surface. A hard rubber might work well. Hopefully the builder wouldn't owe AT&T a royalty for every wheel made
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Interestingly for VEX/VRC, if one used a hard/durable material for the tread, without ridges, all of the wear would happen on the rubber tiles.