Quote:
Originally Posted by lark95
hi all, just thought i would chime in.
this year we used with no suspension and no gyro on a very stiff overbuild 80/20 frame. the only problems we had with driving was when going over the end of the scoring platform when only two wheels were on the floor.
Also though we had some of the most drive practice we have ever had,(about 50-60 hours) As primary driver i already had one years experience.
So my question is this. Is there any advantage to spending an extra week or two in the build season to design these complex drives, coding gyros, and building suspension if those few weeks could have been devoted to the drive team practice? I know this year it paid off to go simple. We made it to the finals in Milwaukee.  |
Good point - and I mostly agree. I think you need to have a frame to reference when talking about the benefits that suspension and gyros add to your competitive experience. Over the last 3 years we have gone from a very rigid 80/20 frame, to a kit frame, to kit frame with gyro. In each year we made it to eliminations at our regional. I think a big difference is that (in my opinion) we had better drivers. I think that fact is discounted a lot in the discussions because it's not quantifiable, and by and large, engineers like quantifiable data.
Our rigid mecanum robot did fine over the platform all through competition. I'm sure it would have fared (almost) as well without the gyro. I think the gyro only corrected for direction when we hopped the platform in our auto routine - without that, I definitely would imagine our robot would have hit slightly at an angle and veered off course at least once.
As the starter of this thread, I can say the reason we are looking at a more complex drive (octocanum) is because we love the motion control we have with mecanum, but dislike the "bad defense, no pushing match" stigma it gets. And then, if we are going octocanum, we might as well find a way to get the benefit of suspension if possible. Aside, I do believe our chassis warps over the season and not all wheels make perfect ground contact, and that can skew direction/performance of the mecanum. I believe that is compensated by our drivers, but it would be nice to have something smoother.
100% agree that I'd take a rigid, non-suspended mecanum robot with an amazing driver with lots of practice, over a suspended, gyro-compensated mecanum robot with little drive practice. In my mind driver practice is worth many times more.