Quote:
Originally Posted by Guopeter
now, is that the acceleration for the entire system or the angular acceleration of the wheels?
I'm trying to confirm a few calculations.
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It's for the whole system. A traction limited robot can't accelerate faster than the coefficient of friction times one g. If the gravitational acceleration on Earth were, say, two gs, then there would be twice as much traction because traction (friction) is equal to the force due to gravitational acceleration (normal force on the wheels) times the coefficient of friction, and the robot would be able to accelerate at two gs. On the moon, of course, where gravitational force is one sixth of a g, the maximal acceleration will be a sixth of a g times the coefficient of friction. Hence the use of the slippery wheels and "regolith" in the Lunacy game to sort of simulate the traction available on the moon.
Accordingly, two traction limited robots, one light, and one heavy, will both have the same acceleration limit, so a drag race will be a tie, but in a pushing contest, the heavy robot wins.