pic: Exploding Bacon's Spamthingamicon! (Octocanum)

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Madison

I'm in the midst of a long vacation from my team, so I haven't had a chance to look at our robot closely since competition, but I don't recall anything seeming worse for wear as a result of lowering the traction wheels instead of the mecanum wheels. What sorts of failure/problems did y'all experience?

I liked the drive enough that I'm willing to optimize it and see what we can do to make it part of our standard toolbox. I'm interested in reading others' experiences with similar drives.

Have you posted a "review" of this style of drive anywhere? If not would you please consider doing so such that those of us who are considering investing the time in research don't have to start from scratch?

My main questions:

How often did you use the mecanum wheels?
The traction wheels?
How often did you use the omni-directional capabilities?
Do you feel that the added cost (complexity, time, money) was warranted given the benefits? Why?


Sorry for asking you to do all this but I'm genuinely curious how this type of hybrid drive worked out for teams this year.