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Re: Be afraid... Be VERY Afraid
1) I can see a couple of problems here. First of all I'm not sure you can get as much traction on that ball as you would wish. The common matertial that I would think of using to cover the ball is roughtop. However roughtop's performance on carbet is directly related to how much tread is touching the carpet. Second the locking system that you described can be done with a regular swerve. However with a regular swerve it is mechanically impossible for the wheel to roll, so you will have a greater resistance to being pushed. Also this whole setup is less efficient. Lastly you usually don't want castor wheels. In this setup specifically you will lose motor power. However I could see them being useful maybe on the bridge this past year.
4) A pound or two more it seems like you could do mini modules like 1625 did. This setup would be much more efficient than your current one, and for the performance gain it would probably be worth the weight. Try getting modules as small as possible. I have done it and it is a very interesting design challenge.
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