pic: "Omni Grenade" Wheel

[Madison]

[quote=Schneidie]

Originally Posted by NoSkaOnTheRadio

this is by far the coolest looking omni i've ever seen. my team is considering a 6 wheel drive system this year, with two omnis as our front wheels. does anyone have any experience with that kind of system?[/QUOTE

Using two omni wheels on a 6 wheel drive could be complicated. If your robot has center wheels that are slightly lower than the other two (creating a teetering effect) the omni wheels would not have much of an effect on the handling of the robot, as they will only be on the ground about half the time. I definitely advise the omnis in the center or a four omni wheel with traction in the middle setup.

We ran a six-wheeled drivetrain last season with no drop on the center wheel. The outer four wheels were all omniwheels and we had no trouble with this arrangement at all. Our machine was a dumper, so we were less at rish for being pushed sideways than a machine that needed to stay stationary to score.

Using just two omniwheels at one end of a six-wheel drive is another viable strategy that offers a bit more resistance to pushing than our arrangement, but correspondingly is more difficult to turn. However, you're effectively shortening your wheel base to ~18", so turning ought to be pretty easy in any case.