Turning; easier one way or the other?

[Solace]

sorry, but aren't the dimensions 30 by 36, not 24 by 30?

[Ryan F.]

*slaps head*..yes...it's too late for me to notice such an insignificant detail

[FizMan]

......... so that's why everyone's bot seemed so much bigger than ours... just kidding.


Well see, I figured since most of you were in the states (in Canada myself), I had to take the exchange rate into account.


But yeah, all four wheels are driving. And what I'm doing is developing a crab drive for the robot, so I can choose which wheels turn the robot, so depending on how we build the robot, we can make the software choose to orientate the wheels to turn either with the front/back or the side wheels.

[Solace]

putting the wheels on the 30" side makes the robot turn earsier nd be more controllable

[Pat Roche]

Just for reference, when doing track drive as long as your distance between you tracks is longer than the length of your track touching the ground then you will turn well(assuming that your tracks have good traction and do not slip alot). I believe this same principle applies to wheels also....correct me if Im wrong.

-Pat

[Max Lobovsky]

You aren't wrong, but I believe FizMan was talking about a "crab drive". In that case, I'm not sure why you care much about tank steering because you can just turn your wheels to turn like a real car, or even cooler, move by translation by having all the wheels have the same orientation relative to the robot and changing that orientation.

[FizMan]

I wish Max, I wish. Unfortunately, the way I'm developing the drive, that's not possible. But the benefit of the crab drive is, assuming the game won't demand it much, we won't need to turn often.

[Max Lobovsky]

FizMan, That sounds like you are talking about translating, not turning. How would you move in more than one dimension without turning? By translating, I mean point all 4 wheels in the direction you want to go, and drive.

[FizMan]

Oh yes, we are translating for the most part. BUT... unless the game is beyond my scope of comprehension, I'm going to assume that being able to TURN the robot as well will be undoubtably required... (for example, orientating the robot so that your bar hanging hook is pointed in the right direction)