[ZakuAce]

we were thinking of using more wheels to support our robot at the front and back when it pivots. The mentors were thinking that even though the robot may be resting on an un-powered wheel at some point, the amount of force that is placed on those wheels will be negligible, as most of the force will still be on the center drive wheels. I guess it is more like the 6 wheel drive with the lowered center drive wheels, only we'll use 5 (2 drive, 2 in front on each side of our ball gatherer, and 1 in the back)

EDIT: So... the trailer hitch can never change from that height? Well that could be a problem. I suppose we could have the rear supporting wheel powered and at the same height as the main drive wheels, and have it programmed to run only when moving foreword and backword. I really want to keep the number of drive motors as low as possible.

I'll bring up this idea that was really good, but ultimately shot down because of complexity.

One of the mentors brought up an idea of a three wheeled system. it would work similar to a crab drive, but has a huge difference. The base that the wheels are attached to would be able to rotate, or rather, the robot would rotate around it. The wheels move, then the entire body moves around the base to face the direction of movement. It seemed really stable and a great way to keep the same weight distribution on all wheels, but it was rather complicated and could interfere with a ball gathering mechanism.