6wd tank with 2 omnis?

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by timytamy

Do you have some pics/more info? I'm curious.

ugh I dont think I have any pictures of it at this point :/ been too long. there's some old video here: http://www.thebluealliance.com/team/2046/2012 and you might be able to see it up close there.

As to why we did it; Story time!

So, way back in 2012, we decided one of the key things was going to be field mobility: getting over the bridge and bump easily. however, we also wanted our robot to be as wide as possible, both to give us the widest possible collection area, and to make balancing easier. having a wider drive base and having a lot of weight up high (due to turrets) makes a robot tend to tip when going over a bump. my former team was and is exceedingly neurotic about tipping, and wanted to avoid it at all costs. that meant keeping our weight as low as possible (hence our turret at the bottom of the shooter tower), and, more importantly to what I'm actually trying to tell you, having as long of a wheel base as physically possible.

with a larger wheel, there would have been a shorter distance between the front and back wheel, which would make it harder to get over the bump. so we wanted small wheels. but that would cause us to high center in the middle of the bump, so we needed them along the full length of the robot. we could have done treads, but we had no experience with them, and man are they hard to do properly. turns out we needed 5 wheels on each side to make that work properly.

tbh, the multitude of wheels we had is rarely necessary, unless there is some sort of field barrier. But, at least in my experience, having lots of small wheels makes the effects of the drop center less profound. now that being said, we didnt use tank this year (H-drive instead), so I dont know how it affects lifts.

Edit: found some pictures that kinda show it
https://www.facebook.com/washingtonf...e=1&permPage=1
https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...3d&oe=566793A3