[dtengineering]

Yes, the numbers for a wide chassis are better, and for six wheel drive (with the middle wheels dropped a bit) are better still. Six wheel drive on a wide chassis, with the centre of gravity over the middle wheels naturally, is the best of the skid steer options. That goes for high friction OR low friction environments.

I suggest everyone who is interested in this download the spreadsheet and try their own numbers in it. You can simulate a six wheel drive with centre drop by assuming it is a four wheel drive with two wheels up in the air. Thus the wheelbase is the distance from the middle wheels to whichever wheels (front or back) happen to be on the ground. The CoG will also move towards the centre axle.

Of course these numbers are calculations and simulations, and need to be confirmed by experimentation. I suspect we'll be seeing some video of the first protobots up on youtube by the end of the week.

Jason