Drive Train/mechanim wheels

[Jeff K.]

Forward and backward speed are faster than horizontal speed, because even though the rollers are at 45 degree angles(or whatever you want them to be), they tend to spin more than actually move the robot. Each wheel has to be independently controlled, simplest way is having each wheel powered by its own gearbox and its own motor, although that may not be the lightest. We had a full closed loop program with gyro and encoders. We took out the gyro because it wasn't too reliable. I think by end of competitions though, we also took out the encoders because it was just easier for the drivers, and each transmission also went at relatively the same speed, so it translated fairly uniformly.

Definitely recommend coding before season to play around with it. I think Michael might come upon this thread sometime and post about the code. The code for this and a holonomic platform, with omni wheels at 45 degrees to the sides, are fairly similar as they work in the same way, but the speed of a holonomic platform is faster moving diagonally, but equal forward, back, and side to side.

Worked on for next year, you mean offseason, as maybe next year mecanum might be the worst choice for strategy, depending. We went with mecanum this year and it was an interesting experience. Learned a lot, but realized that we didn't really need the translation features, and 6wd would have been a lot easier.

Hope that helped.