pic: Omnitrack Summer Project?

[s_forbes]

I thought of omnidirectional treads too when trying to think of an interesting drive system and it's nice to see that someone else is persuing the idea.

One problem I thought of though is this:

If you have 1 tread on each side of the robot, then each tread will only receive about 25% of the total weight of the robot. When you try to push someone forward, you will only be using two of the treads. Since only 50% of your robot weight is on those treads, then you have a significantly reduced pushing power (less traction than a typical 4 wheel robot), even though you are using treads.

Then I remembered "Oh wait, omni treads would be sweet!" and it cancelled out the previous thought.