2015: Mecanum or Slide?

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Monochron

I wish that paper addressed the "top speed, and thus the 'feel' of accelerating, in the sideways direction is less than the forward and reverse direction." I still don't know if that one is true.

From what I understand, theoretically a mecanum can go sideways at the same speed that it goes forward. However, it is a lot more lossy in that direction and as a result you go slower.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Monochron

I wish that paper addressed ... the 'feel' of accelerating, in the sideways direction is less than the forward and reverse direction." I still don't know if that one is true.

It's true, and it's discussed in this paper at the bottom of page3 and top of page4.

[lark95]

Our team is definitely going mucanum drive this year. we thought about slide drive but thought this was a bad option as the center wheel would be the only contacting wheel when going over the scoring platform. Also we have an old mecanum robot that we were able to get driving today and found it had no problems going over the scoring platform. We even strapped 4 batteries to one end for a really bad weight distribution and did not see much change in the drive performance. We were quite surprised at this as we do not have a gyro or suspension on this old bot. We were so impressed that we are not even going to use a gyro or suspension this year for our robot.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by lark95

we are not even going to use a gyro or suspension this year for our robot.

I hope you're ready for the exaggerated claims that will follow in response to this statement.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by lark95

We even strapped 4 batteries to one end for a really bad weight distribution and did not see much change in the drive performance.

Any chance you posted video of that somewhere? I'd sure bookmark it.

[lark95]

No we did not post any vids, But i can see if we can get vid of it on monday.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by MStump

Most swerve drives I've seen have four modules with 1 CIM each, although I have seen one offseason swerve drivetrain that used 3 modules.

Bomb Squad has used 3 modules for years.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by Ether

Any chance you posted video of that somewhere? I'd sure bookmark it.

We have video of us using a plywood board to support totes outside the frame perimeter of a mecanum but I think it was scrapped cause at the end the driver made a mistake and caused the totes to fall on me. I'll poke around and see if I can figure out who had it and if they still do

[lark95]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

We have video of us using a plywood board to support totes outside the frame perimeter of a mecanum but I think it was scrapped cause at the end the driver made a mistake and caused the totes to fall on me. I'll poke around and see if I can figure out who had it and if they still do

We did the same things with the totes to. We even duck-taped the totes on to some protruding arms but they feel off the first time we hit the scoring platform at speed.

Made me wonder how stable a stack will be when it is held by the robot.