pic: 3 wheel omni drive concept

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

Interesting!

Is the strafe (center) wheel actuated to provide a constant (or adjustable) force against the carpet? As the robot leans into "forward" acceleration, the strafe wheel will otherwise tend to rotate off the carpet.

What is the "peg" sticking out the side just to the left of the strafe wheel?

If hit hard enough on the long side, or if power fails for a moment, it will go down. If I were to do something like this, I would use a kickstand that could be used to pick the chassis up off the carpet afterwards. (sniped!)

With this extreme an aspect ratio, it is possible (under 2016 rules) to have a gap in the bumpers so wide that another robot can hit your robot square and hit nothing but frame perimeter. I would anticipate a change in bumper rules after the first year this concept hit the carpet.

The middle wheel is sprung. The module pivots around the peg that you see and is forced into the ground with a spring (latex). This keeps it's downforce constant into the carpet. I had an idea for an adjustable force mechanism, so you could prioritize whether the center wheel or the outside wheels saw more load depending on which direction you were accelerating. It seemed a little farfetched though.

This is what the robot would look like with bumpers. The kickstand is needed because the self righting mechanism is really large and cannot be deployed at the start of the match.



And here's another look at the kickstand mechanism:

Originally Posted by Ari423

Judging by the appearances and the finger joints, it looks like a majority of the frame is made out of wood. I would be a little sceptical of bumpers hitting wood repeatedly in high-speed collisions.

Wood is good! It's far and away my favorite material. With bumper rules in place, you don't have a lot of metal on wood contact. I wouldn't expect anyone to hit this type of robot very hard anyway, because there's a chance it would fall onto your robot if you get too rough.