[Aur0r4]

Some folks on our team are batting around the concept as well. Don't know if its the best choice, but we are in agreement that if there ever was a game where they could be useful, this is it.

Other than looking at previous FRC robots, I would encourage anyone looking at crawler tracks to check out real world designs. There are many VERY different concepts in use in various industries. They all have specific strengths and weaknesses. Earthmoving equipment and large cranes have very different designs....and as a hint, crawler cranes are actually the ones designed to be more maneuverable and smooth.

Military and classic "tank" tracks are another ball of wax from anything in construction. Construction equipment actually rides on small rollers in the middle of a crawler "side frame" and roll smoothly by keeping the roller spacing different from the track pad spacing. As such, they have no suspension. Tanks do have suspension and killer obstacle-climbing ability, but that introduces all kinds of track tension issues. There are many different ways that military designers keep a nice, bouncy track system that doesn't want to jump off the idlers and sprockets.

And, of course, for FRC, you want to crawl all over those obstacles but also not have a robot that's bouncing and leaning all over the place.

Very interesting stuff...