pic: 3 wheel omni drive concept

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

Lots of small details would need to be tweaked to make sure all of the rules are met. This is one of those ones I'd put on the list of "things to fix before bagging". It's usually a very long list.

There would need to be some added support structure to satisfy the bumper rules (at least, if the rules stay the same next year). It wouldn't actually make the frame any stronger; the plywood portion of the bumper could easily handle all of the load from an impact.... but rules are rules. Bumpers seem to be one of those things where the letter of the rule is more important than the intent.

Understood. The point is, I can actually think of a few times when this might have been a decent robot strategy/architecture, making these real questions. I don't recall the 2012 (Rebound Rumble) rules all that well, but as I recall it was not a highly defensive game. If you could easily switch back and forth from a vertical to horizontal orientation, drive in both, have a ball pickup and dispenser of modest speed at the "top" end that filled a "stack" of four balls, then you could have done great pickup, goal scoring, bridge tipping, and (obviously) bridge balancing with multiple partners. (I'm not actually sure you would have needed the strafe wheel.) Pretty much the same robot (sized for a single larger ball) could have also done well at STRONGHOLD, flopping and driving over most of the defenses, including the cheval de frise if you could figure out how to navigate the bumper rules.