[MARS_James]

When it comes to Mechanum Drive some of the things you would think and have been stated are issues can be overcome easily as we learned the last two years since we have used the drive for both Logomotion and Rebound Rumble.

Size argument for the wheels: 10 inchers are way to big for FRC we bought a set of 8 and 6 inch mechanums for testing purposes this year and discovered that the cost of the 8 inch were not worth the increase of skill they gave us

Below are some of the standard issues that have been brought up

Speed: We never experienced any issues with speed in the standard directions and in the strafing this year we had to use controls to slow down the speed because of fear of tipping (the wheels have less surface area in that direction of movement so they aren't as stable)

Climbing: We thought me might have issues this year with climbing the ramps but we were pleasantly surprised, we didn't have enough traction/force to push someone up the ramp but we were able to balance on our own several times with literally seconds left on the clock without issue. The wheels also make it very very easy to be pushed up the ramp.

Pushing: Last year we figured that our maneuverability would be more then enough that it wouldn't matter but this year since we had to score at the fender and were worried so we ran some tests with our tank drive bots and discovered that in the standard direction (as in both robots wheels in the same direction) we could hold our own for about 10 seconds before eventually succumbing and losing the contest. However once we came at the tank drive in the strafing direction (the mechanum robots wheels perpendicular to the tank) we were evenly matched

Driving: The best thing for this type of drive is to give the driver a video game controller and program it to run like a standard FPS game does, but nothing will replace practice for any person driving a robot.

"Einstein" Argument: The amount of teams utilizing Mechanum or any omnidirectional drive is less then the number of teams utilizing a more traditional drive, so they have less representatives competing for a place on Einstein, statistics and probability show that the smaller group has a smaller chance of being selected (Also in judging the amount of time passed since someone with omnidirectional drive got on Einstein try to ignor 2009 since lunacy didn't allow for mechanum or oni wheels).

The most important thing to consider though is what the game is asking you to accomplish and if the wheels will help you to do it. These last two years we felt it was worth it so we did just my two cents