Advantages to a long bot?

[JosephC]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ht=drive+train

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Really, you sure about that?

One of the things that makes a wide bot hard to drive is the fact that it turns so quickly.

Quoted for truth

[dellagd]

a) Is "Turns too fast" really a legitimate reason not to do a wide bot? That is so easily fixed in code. Even if you dont want to loose any control throw, throw some exponential rates in there for some fun.

b) For this year, we found long bot beneficial as it was basically impossible for us to tip backwards when going over the bump even though we didnt have a low center of gravity. Wide would have been a different story.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Really, you sure about that?

One of the things that makes a wide bot hard to drive is the fact that it turns so quickly.

If you think about it, for robots with the same effective wheelbase, the robot with the wider track width will turn slower. This is because the wheels are further out so they have to travel a farther distance to achieve the same amount of rotation. Sorry I should have clarified that.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

If you think about it, for robots with the same effective wheelbase, the robot with the wider track width will turn slower. This is because the wheels are further out so they have to travel a farther distance to achieve the same amount of rotation. Sorry I should have clarified that.

Correct, long bots have shorter effective wheelbases so they will generally turn quicker.

This has always made me wonder if an 8 wheel drive long robot could give you the stability of long with the shorter quicker turning of a wide bot?

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

If you think about it, for robots with the same effective wheelbase, the robot with the wider track width will turn slower. This is because the wheels are further out so they have to travel a farther distance to achieve the same amount of rotation. Sorry I should have clarified that.

4wd wide robots generally have an aspect ratio (ratio between side/side wheel spacing and front/back wheel spacing) that is the same as a 6wd drop center, leading to less turning scrub. A 6wd drop center long robot will have substantially less turning scrub because the aspect ratio will be half of a normal 6wd drop center.

Thinking about turning scrub is important if you want to turn. It also has a huge effect on how squirrely a robot is.