How fast was the fastest mecaum?

[asid61]

Originally Posted by SpeedFreed

Strafing was pretty slow. Keep in mind this was with single speed gearboxes (yes single speed, geared to 20.5 FPS, and mecanum), so strafing was probably no more than 8-9 FPS (this number is entirely guestimate). This was, however, on the set of mecanum wheels with nearly 75% of the rollers broken. All this being said, we still ran it with FOD (nav6), and I (the driver) thought it was great.

Also, we didn't use suspension. I find that making the frame loose, adding suspension, etc, to be pretty unnecessary. The Vex mecanum wheels have that extra flex in them which I think is sufficient to replace the above (at least it was fine for us). I would still make sure it is as flat as you can make it when putting it together though.



Testing was, well, far from scientific, in that we ran it down the hall way a couple times and timed it with stopwatch on a phone. I'd give it a good ± 1 FPS or so. A similar approach was used on carpet.



Both carpet, and non-carpet tests were done over similar distances. I am pretty sure it was due to the extra loss in energy to the carpet (or perhaps to the gobs carpet fuzzies in the gearboxes) Regardless, I 100% do not recommend this set up for this year.

Those are heartening results. We'll have to order a few different gear and sprocket sets for ours then.