[lukevanoort]

Define better. 296 won the championship last year with a 2WD using casters, however their partners, 217 and 522, had extremely high traction 6WD and tank tread systems, respectively. Both worked well. Basically you need to analyze the game and what you need for it. Last year we were rather high traction (coeff. of friction of about 1.3) this year were about 1.0, are both of these valid choices? Yes. We made this choice for a very specific reasons, 1) We felt no need for more traction 2) We're playing offensive this year instead of last year's defense and most of all 3) This amount of traction is nearly ideal for our drive system, since we spin our wheels at just a tad over 40A draw to our motors, keeping us from tripping breakers.

In, short, can a robot with a coeff. of friction of .7 be as effective as one with 2.0? Depends on what you want. Similarly, can a robot with two driven wheel best one with six? Yes. Can six best two? Yes. There is no magic bullet, or universal best design with drive systems. (Although one could make an argument for swerve drives being the universal best, they are rather complex to implement successfully) There are many more factors than just traction wheels or not. Search for posts on drivetrain design if you really want to get into it, especially those made by Joe Johnson, JVN, and Paul Copioli.