Truly omnidirectional omniwheels?

[Simon Strauss]

Sanddrag is right, if you want truly omni directional motion you either have to do crab drive like team HOT has done in the past or do a ball drive(there is a picture of it somewhere on the forums) which functions as a mouse ball does except with motors instead of the roller sensors. Other than that i know of no other way to be truly omni.

[Ianworld]

I believe the technokats at one point made just for fun a ball drive. It was a robot that had two beach balls as wheels. They had two motors hooked up to each beach ball in a contact method. That way they could get the beach balls to roll in any direction, thus moving the robot. Clever, but probably not exactly what you're looking for.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Ianworld

I believe the technokats at one point made just for fun a ball drive. It was a robot that had two beach balls as wheels.

Actually, the wheels were those garden globes you see from time to time. I believe some sort of grippy coating was applied as well.

(If you search hard enough, you'll also note that their ball drive saw action in 2003. Turns out that a team at one of 45's events had a robot busted beyond repair, so they pressed it into service to let them compete again. It even beat 45's robot in one match.)