[BigJ]

These mecanum arguments never solve anything.

One side talks about how mecanum is suboptimal, and the other side white-knights mecanum until their keyboard breaks. Others bring in good information for the debate, but here's the thing:

There is no debate.

Driver skill matters, but physically there are properties mecanum has and properties traction wheels have. Nothing is going to change this fact.

Teams who want to use mecanum will use mecanum. Teams that don't, won't. I don't think anyone is going to have their opinions on the matter magically changed by arguing back and forth - they need to realize answers for themselves.

Team 1675 used mecanum this year because we believed before seeing the game actually played that the game and our design called for it. We believed that the Zone would be very crowded and that defenders would be willing to risk being right up on the zone, giving you limited room to move around once inside. We believed that having the fine positional control of a well-done macanum system was paramount. After all was said and done I believe we would have been fine with any drive system that could pivot.

Do I think we designed a bad robot just because it had mecanum wheels? No. In the future, I probably wouldn't lobby for using mecanum wheels unless the challenge specifically called for strafing or translation of some sort. However, I would hope that our team looks deeply at the game and our solution to the problems that don't involve movement and make a better guess on how the game will be played before deciding upon a drivetrain.