toughbox mini mecanum

[Thromgord]

Originally Posted by Ether

For purposes of fine control of speeds near zero, that is not as efficacious as reducing top speed via gearing.

[EDIT: The below comments are referring to variable-speed gearboxes, not gearboxes in general. -Thromgord]

For this year's challenge, gearing systems are completely unneeded to control speed. Last year, our team had quite a bit of success by keying buttons on our controller to 'reduce speed by 50%' and 'increase speed by 50%.' It allowed us to pick up hypothetical* exercise balls with great precision, speed to the other end of the field really quickly, and then get to the precise place to shoot the hypothetical* balls into the goal. It wasn't even difficult to code!

*Our robot never actually did this, which is why I'm considering this "hypothetical."

It wasn't difficult to program, and while it added no extra torque, no extra torque was needed that year. Except for when we were getting pushed around backwards. You won't require much torque at all this year, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.

By the way, one comment I haven't heard is that mecanum wheels don't work as well under very light loads; we built a mecanum 'bot in the off-season two years ago, and without putting about 40lbs of weight on it (initial weight was about 60lbs), the mecanum wheels wouldn't work properly (it had difficulty going in even the vague direction we wanted to, and after blaming the programmer like we always do, we added more weight and it helped tremendously). I know that you'll have no trouble making a heavy-enough robot, but just be sure to keep this in mind.

I just realized that our team wasn't all that great last year. Ah well, we're off to a good start so far...