Direct Drive Four Motor System

[MattB703]

I'd like to offer two strong opinions on this subject.

1.) Direct drive is good! We have been doing this up in Saginaw for a couple years (teams 902, 703, and 49). I love not have any more chain tensioning/jumping off issues! We just make the holes in the right places, but the thing together, and it works for the whole season. No adjustments!!

2.) I have always been a strong advocate of coupling the wheel rotations to each other. We do it with tank treads, but even with wheels you should make it so all of the motor power can go to both the front and/or the back. The problem comes with the inevitable pushing match. We all start with the same limits on power (same battery/fuses/motors). The trick is to put as much of it to the ground as possible. If you have a motor powering each wheel independently and you get a weight shift on your bot such as climbing a ramp or a pushing match, the wheels that get unloaded are no longer helping and you suddenly went from a 4 motor bot to a 2 motor bot.

(sorry, long winded)

Matt's $0.02