My team is prototyping a variation on a mecanum system that should reduce the impact on our wheels. Each mecanum wheel will be paired with a traction wheel positioned ahead of the mecanum and raised so that it doesn't contact the ground while driving normally. When the robot drives over the barrier, the traction wheel will contact the barrier first and lift the front of the robot, putting the mecanum wheels in a more advantageous position to drive over the barrier. I'll probably post a picture or a detailed drawing once our design is more finalized.
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Originally Posted by SuperNerd256
To put it delicately: Those wheels are gonna be broken in 2 by match 3.
Mecanums have no traction, and worse, are very fragile. Most teams will be going full speed to get over those ramps, and if you do that with mecanums, then they'll get broken before they become useful. Not to mention, it'll be hard to get any traction on the bridges.
If you do use mecanums, then be careful, use them the grippiest way possible, and double check your choice.
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We used mecanums last year and in a 2010 summer project, and have never encountered the problems usually associated with them. They have excellent traction on a variety of surfaces, and while a mecanum bot wouldn't win a pushing contest against an 8-wheel roughtop-treaded gear-shifting defensive beast, we have pushed tank drives around with no problems. Our newest set of wheels, from AndyMark's current line of mecanums, have survived use on multiple robots, and they will survive through this year's competition. As long as you design your drive system so that the barrier impact point is not at the very front of the wheel, so more of the force is directed into pushing the bot over the barrier than into deforming the wheel, you should have no problems.