[Andy Baker]

This is a pretty cool design by the CMU folks. Not only is the ball drive happening, but also reverse pendulum balancing. Kudos to them for pulling this off.

As for the TechnoKats' "ball drive" robot, here is the situation in a nutshell:

This is MAINLY a Mark Koors design. I was "along for the ride" on this patent, and gave Mark some help, having some input. So, while Richard's post above focuses on "Andy's design", I would call it "Mark's design". Mark was the main designer.

We created the design during the fall of 2002 and presented it to Delphi management (We both still work for Delphi, and moonlight as AndyMark co-owners). Delphi management immediately had us file for a patent, as Delphi's property (very rightfully so). During the 2003 build season, the team created a nifty tank drive, and Mark made a 2nd iteration Ball Drive. Both robots were shipped to the competitions (and caused the 3rd rule created by FIRST that countered something that the TechnoKats developed).

One of the highlights of the 2003 year was watching Mark go hoarse, explaining how the Ball Drive worked while demonstrating it all day long in the pits at the Astro Dome in Houston.

As I've said before, this patent is to protect Delphi's intellectual property rights. Of course, FIRST teams can create something like this, as Greg mentioned, since they are not making any money off of it. From my experience, this ball drive is not a good FIRST-competition drive base, as it has less mobility than a holonimic or swerve drive and even less traction than a tank drive robot. But... it is cool, which inspires.

On a side note... the next time you see Greg McCoy (TechnoKat alumni and current Purdue Student & Boilermaker Regional co-chair), ask him to tell you the story about how he convinced the team to not use this drive base in the 2003 FIRST competitions. He and another engineer essentially won a shouting arguement against Mark and I in front of the whole team, and he was only 15.

Rambled enough,
Andy B.