Our team has attempted six wheel drive systems for the last two years. We did extensive prototyping work in both 2007 and
2008 to develop six wheel drive systems. And guess what... we ran into the SAME problems in both 2007 and 2008, too much traction and difficulty turning.
We solved these problems the same way both years; removing two of the traction wheels are replacing them with omnis. We noticed HUGE increases in performance when we replaced the wheels. Our robots were
much more nimble with only four traction wheels.
At the Portland regional this year it occured to me that powering the omni's was a waste of time. I mean, how much traction are you gonna get out of an omni wheel anyways? So we removed the chains from our omni wheels. Do you know what happened? Nothing. Except we lost about a pound of weight.
So here is my challenge to teams using omnis this year: take off the chains and see what happens. You may be surprised to find that there will be no change in preformance.
What I've learned amounts to this:
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4 WD* Is the best configuration for a game with no obsticles. 4 WD is more controlable than 2 WD and is significantly simpler than 6 WD.
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6 WD Is only neccessary when there are obsticles to climb over. Fewer wheels and you'll increase the risk of bottoming-out.
*With the wheels oriented in a square NOT a rectangle.