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Is it worthwhile to electronically control the speed of each individual tire in a closed loop fashion on FIRST robots?
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In my opinion, answer is: Maybe! But before you go piling on a whole bunch of complexity, you should try to design something simple that’ll go straight all on it’s own – build it – test it – if it works, you’re done.
That’s what we did with the above example of our experience, as Collin was asking, with four-wheel direct drive. It was a low risk experiment for us. The CIMs were known to be unbiased, and they gave us four. The parts were water-cut from scrap in about two hours – including the welding jig, which made for 30 minutes to weld. The DeWalts cost $21 each. The wheels cost $17. So, with a $200 investment, the kit frame, and some assembly, we had it on the ground in two days. It went straight.
OTOH, suppose that this year’s game has an autonomous that is worth doing and requires precise positioning… Who knows! Except that one thing we’re sure is we’ll try to keep it as simple as we can.