What is T-boning?

[tickspe15]

Originally Posted by Taylor

It's amazing to me how many threads devolve into mecanum-bashing.

Our FRC team used them once in 2011, and once again in offseason versions of our 2013 robot; we liked them for our strategy and for that game, and have no ill feelings toward them. They were rock-solid and worked perfectly well for what we wanted. But we never got t-boned - in fact we actively avoided contact because that's what mecanum wheels are designed to do.

Mecanum is not always bad for specific game play strategies. Although they make the robot less versatile and thus are not seen in higher levels of play.

I have seen well executed mecanum robots with well trained drivers(836). The problem is that many teams that use mecanum aren't well developed teams and choose mecanum because of the cool factor but never get around to making the "cool" part work and if they do they rarely have time to learn how to drive it or develop other mechanisms on the robot to function at a high enough level. These teams that struggle with mecanum will continue to create subpar robots, although possibly slightly better, with or without mecanum.

[IronicDeadBird]

If you are going by the conventional concept of T-boning as applying a force perpendicular to an objects force then it is actually something that you can prevent from happening with design or driver skill.

In retrospect I sound smarmy as all get out...
Think about how you can change how other robots apply force onto your robot.
Think about making sure your drivers know how to redirect forces applied.