[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by gpetilli

More forward traction is highly desirable for better forward acceleration.

I believe free acceleration (i.e. not pushing against another robot) is almost never traction-limited in FRC; you'll pretty much only ever slip your wheels if you gun it from a dead-stop, and only for a few fractions of a second.

I did some crude calculations recently, and found that for a 150lb, 4-CIM robot with a wheel CoF of about 1, you are traction-limited at a dead-stop for any gearing below ~12 feet/second.

So, if we have a mecanum geared for 12 feet/second, then, which is a pretty standard gearing, we'll only be traction-limited until our motor torque drops to ~70% of stall torque, which corresponds to ~30% of top speed.

With this in mind, I don't think you're going to see all that much practical change in your acceleration with increased CoF.