2015: Year of the Mecanum

[Jalerre]

For those talking about driving over the bumps, I do believe that is prohibited. Don't quote me on this but I think it says so somewhere in the manual. Their primary only purpose is as a scoring platform so you don't need to worry about how mecanums are going to get over the bumps.

In regards to programming mecanums, I can say from experience that it is really easy. Our team has used them for the past 3 years. Both Java and C++ (I can't speak for Labview) have methods for programming a mecanum drive (2 methods in fact, at least in the 2014 library). Just plug in your parameters and that's all there is to it.

Finally, though I didn't agree with my team in the past about a mecanum drive train, this year I can really see the advantages. Because there won't be too much robot-to-robot interaction you won't have to worry about pushing power or traction. Also strafing will be really useful when you need to line up to stack the totes and recycling bins.