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Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
jimFortytwo,
Was that aimed at me? If so, then I am ready to put my money where my mouth is. Are you?
-Paul
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No, I wasn't trying to single you out. Though I imagine you have not yet, in fact, read the white paper in question, and have not done the experiments yourself. Or are you holding out on us?
I suggest reading the whitepaper. Following your challenge, I reread it, and the results still somewhat surprise me. I won't bother summarizing, as it would spoil the surprise.
the paper:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=15719
I guess the other part of "putting my money where my mouth is" should be to mention the traction tests I did for my team last year. We were looking at 8" hard rubber tires with an aggressive crosswise tread pattern. I did tests for kinetic friction with 30 pounds and 20 pounds of pressure on the tire. I was working with the risky approximation that in a 4-wheel drive robot each tire sees 30 pounds (30*4 =120), and in a 6-wheel design tires see 20 pounds (20*6 = 120). I can't remember the exact numbers, but my recollection is that I extrapolated a 10-20% benefit in the case of distributed load. Obviously a better procedure is needed to give any meaningful results, however.
I remain convinced that the traction advantage of treads over wheels is so highly dependent on the carpet and material that you can not generalize it. If I can put together materials to do a proper investigation of the subject, I will. Unfortunately we're on winter break, so that might have to wait until January.