Effective Drive Base

[Kevin Sevcik]

Checking your assumptions at the door is definitely important. For instance, the Aim High ramp was only 30 degrees to a nice flat with a wall behind it. The Bump (caps make it scarier) is 45 degrees up, to a flat with a 45 degree faceplant just waiting for the unwary or timid driver.

Before picking a drivetrain, you should consider how it's going to rest on the slope, what that implies for your CoM, and what a sudden stop will do to you on the down slope. Or a sudden start on the upslope. You may want to mock up a bump and throw a drivetrain at it to see the effects momentum can have on your robot. I can tell you that a robot with more than 3 contact points per side should worry about having a CoM higher than 12". The case for a 6 wheeler is going to depend on the wheel sizes and separations, though it should be somewhat better.

EDIT: As Martin Taylor pointed out, numerous contact points on a side means you significantly raise your CoM before your robot tips onto the flat of the bump. Which would be survivable if the flat was, say, 24" long. But a 12" flat isn't a large landing pad. If you have a CoM over 12" in the center of your bot, then once you tip over to the flat of the bump, your CoM is already past the far side of the flat. Which means you just keep tipping forwards. Which means you're going to faceplant on the far side of the bump. Moving your CoM rearward helps, but not as much as you'd think. Accelerating off the backside of the bump will probably spare you the faceplant at the price of an even rougher landing.