Quote:
Originally Posted by PhatMike
Further supporting the wheel ..
Think of the range of motion you have with a joy stick. 90 degrees, at best. With a steering wheel, you have over 200 degrees of control (if not more, depending on your wheel). This was the argument supporting the wheel presented to us by a mentor from Team 60 (after 60/254's extremely successful 2004 season).
It is MUCH easier for students to learn how to drive the wheel than with (a) stick(s). And that's not limited to students, if you have a sponser, little kid, future team member, etc .. driving, it's much easier for them to get a feel of it without crashing into something or someone.
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After trying a steering wheel for the first time this year I'd have to agree...
Having the steering wheel and one joystick for throttle made it much easier to turn, turn inside our footprint and drive straight (encoders of course helped out too).
We had a first year driver and it only took him a couple minutes to get the hang of driving around with the steering wheel. After about a day on our practice robot he started looking like natural on the wheel.