[pntbll1313]

Originally Posted by Siri

I don't see how to make this a 'cancel out' situation: how does it overcome the phenomenon that mecanums break traction before any tank drive with at least the same* CoF and weight? If the issue is slipping (which is why I asked), it's not CoF vs CoF issue; it's the geometry of the wheels. The fact that mecanum CoFs are then 40-75% that of most tanks only serves to compound this.


Roller slip will vary by specific DT, but not nearly as much as between mecanum and tank in general, and it's not helpful in strafing. It's also (thanks to Ether), not overly difficult to model the description, at least to the point of illustrating its negative effect. As the paper explains, the friction that keeps rollers from slipping adversely effects mecanum's strafing traction. If this is what we're talking about, I don't understand the implication that driving the wheels produces more tank-like results.

*Apparently also lower, to a factor of sec(α)--Ether's paper is great.

All very good points! I don't claim to be a physics expert. I am not. That's why I asked Ether to give me some numbers

Again we were never trying to push in the sideways direction. Our video does not show us winning too many big pushing matches. Mecanum allowed us to avoid those situations. We did not choose mecanum for its pushing power haha, nor do we generally use it for such things. The video is just meant to show some examples of how we used mecanum to our benefit this year, and to hopefully show it's not as weak of a drivetrain choice as it is in most CD'ers minds. No one (hopefully) chooses mecanum for traction purposes. We just wanted to highlight some of our match videos because people cited us as a good example of mecanum.