Here's what 12:1 banebots direct drive to 8" AM mecanums looks like.
http://www.youtube.com/dtengineering#p/u/1/gyn9e0cT3-A
Heck... that thing even picks up tubes. Add a minibot and you're good to go.
Jason
P.S. If we rebuilt that machine all over again, I'd be tempted to consider the 16:1... the 12:1 had lots of speed, but I think the 16:1 would offer better acelleration and more precise control. I'd also use the Jaguar speed controllers to implement closed-loop speed control on the controller so you can take the PID loops and encoder reading out of the programming process. Not that it is hard to do that in labview... but back in the PIC days you actually had to have students who knew how to program in order to get 4 PID loops running! With labview and/or the jags, you just set your coefficients and go back to building the minibot.
Diversity means diversity in ideas too. Some of the robots from the singapore competition might have employed strategies or ideas that we may not even have come up with in North America. - J Flex 188 [more] 
15-01-2011, 00:58
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