6 wheel holonomic drive feasibility

[Pault]

Originally Posted by ekapalka

I'm getting the feeling that you have something against mecanum wheels... well, to each his own We have plenty of drivetrains that work, and even more people who know how to use them. Teams that decide to use mecanum wheels have to start somewhere, right?

My opinion (and I think his opinion, and the opinion of many people on this forum) is that just because you can build a mechanum drive doesn't mean you should. Maybe your team thinks differently, and thats perfectly fine. But the point was that the resources you put into a mecanum drive would be better spent on improving either your tank drives (no tank drive is perfect, there is always room for improvement) or the other mechanisms on your robot. Again, thats an opinion, and like you said, to each his own.

If you have want your robot to have pushing power, mecanum is definitely a terrible choice (this is an opinion backed by a lot of evidence). The are drivetrains out there that can give you omnidirectional movement and pushing power (swerve, octocanum, and probably some other rare ones), but only the best teams (think IRI caliber) are able to make one without devoting nearly all their resources to it. Generally, unless your strategy to play a certain year's game revolves completely around omnidirectional movement with pushing power, you should just stick with tank drive (or mecanum if you really insist). (I'm addicted to parenthesis (like, really addicted)).