Mecanum Rolling Chassis

Second season, 4134 going with something different.

[EricDrost]

What are your reasons for choosing mecanum?

It's Cool.

[ehfeinberg]

Did you make those wheels? They don't look like either Andymark or Vexpro Mecanum wheels.

Love the paint scheme The white rollers are a nice touch.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DMike

It's Cool.

"Cool factor" should never be the driving factor for a design choice. "Correct" answers for this would include anything related to functionality. I would use the increased maneuverability, myself.

You could also use "Inspiration" as a reason, but that's also low on the reason priority list.

[dcarr]

Beautiful. Love the color scheme. Hope mecanum works out for you.

[EricDrost]

Originally Posted by EricH

You could also use "Inspiration" as a reason, but that's also low on the reason priority list.

So this ISN'T a program to inspire youth?

Good to know.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by DMike

It's Cool.

What other reason do you need? As long as you didn't choose it because you think it gives some competitive advantage, it's fine in my books.

Maybe this team isn't looking at becoming 1114 just yet, and they just want to have fun building a robot and learn something. It's not always about the competition with every team.

The positive aspects of mecanum are surely well known as well the negatives. Cool is quite often used for design inspiration. Harley Earl would certainly agree as well as many other great designers. The cool in the design attracts attention and gives us the opportunity to explain the building process and FIRST. It's a solid design, form-function-finish.

[ehfeinberg]

Originally Posted by EricH

"Cool factor" should never be the driving factor for a design choice. "Correct" answers for this would include anything related to functionality.

Coolness is a perfectly good design factor depending on your teams priorities. If your team wants to build something they want to build, and work on inspiring people with something that they are interested in, then coolness is a big factor in the design. However, if you just want to go out there and win, coolness isn't such a large factor in the design process.

Take this year for example, my team decided to pursue a top rung climber even though it is a big stretch for my team. We decided to go after this idea and not just be a run-of-the-mill shooter because we were excited about it. We might not succeed, and it might not be the best way to win, but hey, we will have a lot of fun building it on the way.

Although I agree that coolness shouldn't be the main design factor, different teams have different priorities, and thus hold the coolness factor to different levels of importance.

[pfreivald]

In terms of inspiring sponsors to give us piles of money we may or may not deserve, mecanum wheels have well more than paid for themselves -- especially when you can explain both the benefits and the drawbacks.

99.9999%-ish of the population has never seen an omnidirectional drive, and are impressed with the very notion. They're even more impressed when the students on the team can articulately explain why they're not always the best choice for a situation.

Thus, cool-factor should not be poo-pooed, even if the demonized and well-hated mecanum drive is, in your mind, a poor choice for any given game.

Why wouldn't mecanum be a reasonable choice for this game? Maneuverability would seem to be a benefit as well as the direct drive. The court is a flat surface with vertical obstacles. We have tested a 6 inch set of wheels on many surfaces including asphalt roads, light gravel, wood, tile, rug, compact dirt and more. The wheels handled it all, they were very durable. The side load from pushing seems acceptable, front and rear a bit less. With some good programming and driving, this should be a good system. It might even roll straight up the tower.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by DMike

Why wouldn't mecanum be a reasonable choice for this game?

Because you have a WIDE OPEN field, and relatively few zones to protect you from defense. There's no tight corners to navigate around, and the main game task really benefits from resistance to pushing that mecanums just can't give you.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by DMike

Why wouldn't mecanum be a reasonable choice for this game? Maneuverability would seem to be a benefit as well as the direct drive. The court is a flat surface with vertical obstacles. We have tested a 6 inch set of wheels on many surfaces including asphalt roads, light gravel, wood, tile, rug, compact dirt and more. The wheels handled it all, they were very durable. The side load from pushing seems acceptable, front and rear a bit less. With some good programming and driving, this should be a good system. It might even roll straight up the tower.

I'd be worried about defense -- which I think will be huge this year -- and mecanum wheels, while not as bad as many would like to think, do suffer against most conventional drives when it comes to pushing matches.

Pyramid protection helps, but doesn't eliminate, the disadvantage -- and I think it can be argued that near your alliance pyramid the mecanum drive might very well have the advantage.

Overall, as a person who personally really loves mecanum as an easy-to-implement and comparatively cheap omnidirectional drive system, I'd say that pure mecanum is at a disadvantage this year (for exactly the same reason that disk pickup is really nice but not required)... But it's not crap.

[cadandcookies]

I wish our chassis looked that good! Serious props, especially for a second year team. I think the subject of mecanum drive has been beaten to death, so I'm just going to sit back and admire that beautiful frame!