Swerve/crab drive and tank turning

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by activemx

SO basically you guys(111) lifted the back of your base and used the front to tank, am i right?

Actually we lifted the front of our base and used the back to turn, but yeah...

do you think if we take off the tread and use a different form of belting like the black ones from mcmaster( not treads on them, just plain black plasticy not sure what material)

I'm not a mechanical guy so I can't comment on specific tread types, but from a generic point of view there's simply too much traction. You need to reduce that somehow. Last year we decided to temporarily reduce our traction by lifting two wheels off the ground using a slippery piece of Delrin. Putting something with less friction on your wheels will help, but then you're sacrificing traction. You could also use what we call BUPODs (others seem to call Omni Wheels) in place of two of your wheels, but they're a little complicated to construct. The advantage is they have good traction in one direction but also slip easily from side to side, allowing for easy tank turning. Our 2001 robot had these and it drove quite nicely.

Here's a picture of someone else's omni wheels: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ght=omni+wheel