[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

We've also found that using seperate control sticks for Forward/Reverse and Left/Right can help tracking. That way, when using "arcade" style driving (rather than tank style, where you control each side or the robot with a seperate stick) when you want to go straight forward you just lift your thumb off the "turning" stick, and you will always get a perfectly straight forward/reverse input to the robot. When you want to stay still and turn, you take your thumb off the forward/reverse, and all you get is turn.

Jason,

I'm looking for a little more detail on what you mean by this. I presume when you refer to "taking your thumb off" you're using a gamepad for driver control, rather than the traditional kit joysticks.

Most teams use the two kit-of-part joysticks to control the robot in "tank drive" style where only front/back on the sticks controls anything. In this way, the left stick controls front / back on the left side of the robot, and the right stick controls front / back on the right side.

The other common alternative is to have "arcade drive" where one stick controls the robot via front/back and right/left stick movements.

What I understand you to be suggesting is to instead use the two joysticks so that one of the joysticks controls front/back of the whole robot (like front/back in "arcade style") and the other joystick controls right/left turning (like right/left in "arcade style") but using 2 joysticks to provide this input rather than just one input. Am I correctly understanding what you are suggesting? Presumably, also rather than actually using two separate joysticks, you simply use a gamepad to provide the above control?

Our team has explored a lot of different drive approaches, but I don't think we've ever tried the above. Sounds like something our team should give a go during the off-season... Thanks for sharing!

--ken