pic: 6 wheel drive with a suspension

[Mike Nawrot]

We were tossing this idea around just for kicks at some point this year. We never had any intentions to go through with it, or to even take the time to draw it up. I'm glad somebody did though. But, as awesome as it is, I'm not sure there's not much of an advantage to it. We did a mecanum drive this year, and though we had some problems with strafing, it turned just as well as, if not better than a six wheel drive. In general, the addition of an omni wheel won't help the maneuverability of the drive train. The traction provided by the omni wheel might improve the pushing ability of the drive train, but only if you use soft rubber rollers and an overlapping roller design so you have constant contact between the rollers and the ground. IMHO, the complexity, and thus increased probability of failure of the system outweighs the few performance benefits such a design provides. Though, to quote a friend, "if it looks good, it is good". And this design looks pretty awesome.