pic: FRC488's Octocanum Ver 2.0

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Madison

Our mecanum implementation worked. I didn't program it, so I can't speak too much to what made it work, but our programming team did a fantastic job there. We had accurate, fast, field-oriented drive that allowed us to fully use the movement capabilities of the mecanum wheel set. In my experience, most teams fail to achieve the level of control we managed.

Mecanum is not hard to program. It is very straightforward. The same is true of field-oriented drive.

If your robot had superior control, I suspect the reasons are probably:

1) superior craftsmanship and attention to detail of the mechanical design (wheel and frame alignment, leveling, weight distribution, minimal and consistent drivetrain friction, carefully assembled and adjusted mecanum wheels)

2) attention to detail of the electrical design (proper wiring to motors and gyro, selection of gyro with minimal drift, etc)

3) well-designed driver interface (match the driver interface to the driver)

4) skilled drivers with lots of practice