caster wheels vs. omni wheels

[gondorf]

i was just wondering whatpeople thought of the whole idea of having rear wheel drive and casters or omnis on the front. we tried them and withouit too much weight on them they seemto have similar drive properties in that the handling is so sensitive it is nearly impossible to attain a speed and drive straight. just wondering if there are any true advantages to either.

also since we also tried using sliders/ plastic sleds on the front to great effect ill add this too.

thanks!

[Vikesrock]

If you aren't going to power the Omni's I would go with some type of plastic sled or maybe a ball caster.

I would stay away from regular casters, if you've ever pushed around a shopping cart with a wheel that wants to go off on it's own you know why.

I'm sure some of the people here with more experience will be a little more helpful.

[Andy L]

we're having a rear wheel drive and ball casters would work but that 1/2" bump near the lane divider will give you some problems from what we found, I'd go with the omni's, we've decided to use the AM coolie doolies

[Nevets Amstier]

If i had to choose i'd choose omnis, but with any of them you're going to be easy to pushed or nudged so that you change direction.

[Laaba 80]

I think if you are going to use casters you should put them in the back and have front wheel drive. It is almost impossible to handle the robot with rear wheel drive and casters. We had casters in the back last year, and teams realized that if they hit us there we would spin out. If they hit us every once and a while they essentially took us out of the game. We eventually added a skid along with the casters to try and help the problem.

Our rookie year we had a 4 wheel drive with omnis in the front. It worked, but I was not a big fan of it because since all wheels were powered, the omnis really didnt help. Again teams found out they could hit us in the front, although it wasnt as big of an impact as the casters.
Joey