
11-05-2007, 12:45
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Mateus Gabriel
 FRC #1382 (Tribotec Team)
Team Role: Mentor
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Brasil
Posts: 77
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Re: mecanum vs. omni
Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK
I agree to an extent. If you prototype something on limited resources and then realise after the game is announced that your prototype concept has little chance of success in the game, then you have 2 choices: 1. Come up with a creative way to implement your prototype or 2. (more common) Adapt your prototype so that it fits into the current strategy, therefore introducing (sometimes) very complex integration issues or unforseen behaviors --
e.g. Adapting mecanum to play pure defense will really put some wear on the treads of the wheels -- enough wear to be of concern if you attend 2+ competitions with success.
Ok, so this argument probably holds little weight in the case of mecanums, as it's more likely you can adapt your strategy to use mecanums with some sucess every year. However, if you're like most teams, you'd rather adapt your robot to your chosen strategy and not vice versa. This is also good engineering practice, whereas adapting your strategy to your robot is something that's good practice for learning how to find & fight problems (namely integration problems) after the fact.
Being a strategist and an engineer at heart, I personally choose the former. In the meantime, the "prototypes" I'm doing on mecanums extend into the VEX realm, by trying to make a 100% legal mecanum VEX wheel for $20 or less per wheel (very very tough to do atm unless they make the white nylon spacers come in the VEX kit -- easy to do with those). Another thing you can do, is take a look at the white papers, do that math, and create a VEX omni-wheel drive. The hardest part about holonomic drive is the physics, vectors, and programming, so getting started with developing an algorithm in programming or creating a full VEX omni-drive will get you headed in the right direction.
Save the purchase of the wheels for the big robot for after the game announcement so you know that you're getting your money's worth.
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that would be great! ^^
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Mateus, Team #1382 - www.etepteam.com.br
2004 New Jersey:
Semifinalist
2005 New Jersey
GM Industrial Design Award, Website Excelence and Safety Award
2006 New Jersey
Autodesk Visualisation Award
2007 Brazilian pilot:
Website Award, Regional Winners and Chairman's Award
2007 Championship:
[b]12th seeded in Galileo and Judges Award - "Pay FIRST Forward"[b]
2008 Brazilian Regional:
Website Award, Regional Finalist and Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control
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