mecanum wheel intake test

[Caleb Sykes]

I haven't seen any videos yet of mecanum wheel intakes, so I thought I would share our test from last week.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFU...M-n0wSA/videos

We have improved our bumper "mount" since then.

[asid61]

Holy smokes! We might just add some of those to our bot now.

[jamesmcip]

Wow! That is actually really ingenious. Is there any issues when pushing the ball out of the robot as the mecanum wheels will be forcing the ball out to either side?

[TimTheGreat]

Why mecanum? It seems like you could do this with any wheels. What is the advantage?

[asid61]

Originally Posted by TimTheGreat

Why mecanum? It seems like you could do this with any wheels. What is the advantage?

They have a component of motion that direct the ball to the cutout, which regular wheels do not have.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by TimTheGreat

Why mecanum? It seems like you could do this with any wheels. What is the advantage?

Watch closer. It scoots the ball sideways along the bumper before feeding it into the cutout.

[dodar]

Look back at 180 in 2014 and 179* in Recycle Rush. Both used mecanum in their gatherers and worked amazingly.

*Used on their can claw

[Mike dennis]

Originally Posted by dodar

Look back at 180 in 2012 and 179* in Recycle Rush. Both used mecanum in their gatherers and worked amazingly.

*Used on their can claw

180 used them in 2014. The 2012 World Championship robot was a simple piece of PVC pipe painted red.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Mike dennis

180 used them in 2014. The 2012 World Championship robot was a simple piece of PVC pipe painted red.

You are correct. Got the years mixed up.

[Hadi379]

1986 in 2014 comes to mind

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by jamesmcip

Wow! That is actually really ingenious. Is there any issues when pushing the ball out of the robot as the mecanum wheels will be forcing the ball out to either side?

As long as our wheels are equally spaced, we have never had any problems shooting the ball straight out.

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by TimTheGreat

Why mecanum? It seems like you could do this with any wheels. What is the advantage?

Linear motion parallel to the rotation axis of the wheel. This is the advantage that these wheels give.

[NinjaMunkeeNao]

Cool! Good job guys!

[gurellia53]

What is your spacing between mecanum wheels? We are finding some dead zones if we space them out too much.

Here's a picture from a few days ago. I'll try to get a video the next time we run it.

Also, we are heavily considering printing hubs and using the purchased Vex rollers... It will bring down the cost a lot but not sure how this will hold up at competition.

[mrnoble]

1619 used these in 2014 as well. I know other teams did too; I mention 1619 since their 2014 robot has inspired about half of our design for this year (including the intake).