pic: Practice Mecanum Chassis

[Crazy Ivan]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I was afraid that an active suspension would be necessary. While certainly not too hard to achieve, the added complexity and additional weight hurts the practicality of the design.

On your chassis, were the bolts that ran through the rubber cylinders riding in slots? It seems like they'd need to because the module pivots on the opposite end, but it's hard to see from the photo you posted -- which is otherwise enormously helpful. For as much as people are fascinated by these drives, I can't seem to find very many photos.

Could you describe a bit more about what you mean by 'aligning' the drivetrain?

The bolts ran in holes in the frame. As for aligning, you basically just have to make sure all your wheels start even to begin with. The first time we put the wheels on an pressed go, the robot started spinning in circles. We found it took a couple of tweaks and surprisingly high accuracy (we started to measure in centimeters ) to achieve a perfect result. But once it was set up, we were all set for 5 months of competition.