pic: Practice Mecanum Chassis

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Jeff 888

what motors are you going to use?

Each of the four wheels will be driven by its own, small Chiaphua motor. I'm presuming the kit will remain unchanged in that respect next season.

What's the purpose of the large plates on either side of the wheel? Why not a much smaller system to mount the wheels and/or bearings?

They're so large so as to protect the wheels from impact some. Last season, our omniwheels were unprotected and took a few good hits from robots with higher chassis rails, causing them to bend. We were always able to bend them back, but they were also a lot cheaper and easier to reproduce so we had plenty of spares. They also look pretty cool.

Wow, great work. Thats an impressive model. I have one question though, do you plan on putting a suspension on you chassis? I can tell you from our experience with mecanum that constant contact is important. Our team, 40, used rubber bumpers on our wheel pods to keep contact. Also at nationals we saw another team (I'm terrible at remembering team numbers) who used small pnumatic pistons for a suspension.

Thanks. Do you have any photos of the arrangement you used? I've currently arranged for the large wheel guards that hold the axles to use vertical slots so that we can adjust their position relative to the frame. This would allow us to raise or lower the wheels individually to ensure contact in case the frame warps or bends, but it wouldn't do this dynamically during a match. How important do you think it is that the wheels sit on an active suspension?

The design I've made previous to this included a more substantial, pivoted subchassis for the two rear wheels that would dynamically stabilize things, but it seemed a bit like overkill. That's shown below:

It's an older model, so there're no chains on this one. They didn't disappear or anything.