Video of Mecanum Drive Running Circles Around 6 Wheel Drives

[gabrielau23]

Our team has used 6 wheel drivetrain for the past 3 years and has been extremely happy with the results. Last year we pretty much perfected it for our purposes. This year the drivetrain all came together and I think we're going to be using it for the forseeable future. Our driver was EXCELLENT, so we had very few problems lining up to take shots, and we usually were able to hit 3 cycles on a bad match. Something I can tell you right now is that I really didn't see any mecanums utilize their maneuverability well enough to offset the disadvantages of us being able to
a. Either push right through them
or
b. Hit them on our way back and forth from the stations and screw up their shot occasionally.
Another robot for reference is 79, team KRUSH at the DC regional. They simply owned defenses trying to stop them, and they used a 6 wheel drivetrain. They juked, they used spin moves, they were able to outmaneuver pretty much every form of defense that was tried to be played on them.

Even last year there were problems. If you were balancing with another robot that had mecanums, you always had to push them up. And if you went too far towards the mecanum's side, the probability of a balance just went down since there was no way the mecanums were going to be able to push a 120+lb. 'bot up the bridge.

I think that it all comes down to practice. If the team using mecanums has little to no practice, the team is usually very ineffective since they can't utilize the crab function correctly. On the other hand, a team that has had significant practice with mecanums should be able to match up well against a 6 wheel drivetrain. I think that it is, more or less, like this.

Well-practiced Mecanum <= Well-practiced 6 Wheel Drivetrain
Well-practiced Mecanum >= Good 6 Wheel Drivetrain
Little-practiced Mecanum < Good 6 Wheel Drivetrain