We built a 6-CIM Kiwi Drive. Criticisms please!

[asid61]

The thing is, having already made a "kiwi" drive makes the next year's drivetrain much easier. Maybe not day 1, but defeinitely much earlier design-wise. Whenever doing a new drivetrain, be it WCD or kiwi or swerve, it should always be prototyped in the offseason. Doing radically new things during the season tends to have problems in my experience.

Personally, I always say "play for the endgame". This is true for many competitions that I've seen. By "play for the endgame", I mean that selecting the most effective drivetrain and practicing with that will turn out better (eventually) than using easier drivetrains (like kitbot) and being unable to modify effectively.

To OP:
This looks super clean! The creativity aspect of using 3 wheels in an equilateral shape makes this worth it IMO. New ideas get us places. Even if we don't like those places very much lol.

Now, about the kiwi drive:
-Does wheel slippage make for lower efficiency? Have you tested the electrical current levels against a 4-wheel or 6-wheel drive for the same speed?
-Is programming very tricky? Is it easy to implement with a different wheel spacing?
-How much does the basic chassis weigh, not including electronics (with or without motors)?
-Did you have tipping problems due to the 3-wheel design?
-Did the pointyness help you very much?
-What kind of traction did you see with this?