Quote:
Originally Posted by SWIM
But what happens when you put the same tires on the car and the tank?
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Being on a team that built an Ackerman steering robot for last year's game (see:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/29780) and as a drivetrain guy myself, I can say that the steering robot was a very, very high traction system. In the picture you can see that we used dualie 10" rubber wheels on the differential and 8" rubber wheels in the front. It needed a lot of traction to work.
We used those same 8" wheels on a tank drive in the Aim High game, and the robot had entirely too much traction and essentially "danced" while trying to turn (we have since learned..) So if you extrapolate you can conclude that the high traction environment was needed on the car steering, while completely overkill on the tank drive.
I can't conclusively say that the Ackermann steering requires significantly more traction to work, but from my experience it seems as if it does - and I would have a hard time seeing it working with a lack of traction on the front steering wheels. Take it as you may.
-Greg