What is T-boning?

[cjl2625]

Originally Posted by Karthik

There are a surprising number of mecanum robots that are not actually programmed to go sideways; they simply use mecanum wheels in a tank drive setup...

Why would any team put mecanum wheels on their robot and not implement strafing code? You lose your pushing power and don't even get the added maneuverability. Might as well just go with normal tank drive...

Originally Posted by safiq10

...some examples of how team get out of these situation...

We rotate our wheels 90 degrees and move away.
Or perhaps we might pivot around a wheel and roll out of it.
hehehe... #swerve

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by cjl2625

Why would any team put mecanum wheels on their robot and not implement strafing code?

It's less a question of intention, and more a question of capability.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by cjl2625

Why would any team put mecanum wheels on their robot

Great question. (Really can't believe no one's done that yet.)

The general reasoning you can find relating the implementation of mecanum drive and a successful robot are as follows

1) The teams that DO implement it do poorly because they may find themselves spending inordinate amounts of time working on the drive base alone, only to maybe not even have it work. Teams with more experience have better success with the system, BUT
2) The teams you would consider to be successful don't implement it for reasons you can say boil down to finding a better way for them to implement omnidirectional drive (148) or them mastering a simple (not easy necessarily, but simple) concept like the WCD on 254.

(can't stress enough this is a sweeping generalization on mecanum and quote-replies of anecdotes about your team's success with mecanum drive will be met with thunderous indifference)

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by JVN

Just because they don't EVER move sideways, doesn't mean they're not programmed to do so. It is bad scouting to make an assumption like this...

It is bad scouting of scouting to make an assumption of an assumption in regards to another team's scouting...

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I've seen worse -- teams that chain both mecanum wheels on each side to the same gearbox.

Yup, seen this one before.

Mecanum drives fascinate me, so when I see a mecanum team that doesn't go sideways, I'll try and make time to go ask the team why they aren't going sideways. The most common answers are:

1. We just wanted to use Mecanum wheels. We didn't know they needed special programming.
2. The robot moves much faster in tank mode.
3. The robot wouldn't drive straight with mecanum mode.

[Taylor]

It's amazing to me how many threads devolve into mecanum-bashing.

Our FRC team used them once in 2011, and once again in offseason versions of our 2013 robot; we liked them for our strategy and for that game, and have no ill feelings toward them. They were rock-solid and worked perfectly well for what we wanted. But we never got t-boned - in fact we actively avoided contact because that's what mecanum wheels are designed to do.

[tickspe15]

Originally Posted by Taylor

It's amazing to me how many threads devolve into mecanum-bashing.

Our FRC team used them once in 2011, and once again in offseason versions of our 2013 robot; we liked them for our strategy and for that game, and have no ill feelings toward them. They were rock-solid and worked perfectly well for what we wanted. But we never got t-boned - in fact we actively avoided contact because that's what mecanum wheels are designed to do.

Mecanum is not always bad for specific game play strategies. Although they make the robot less versatile and thus are not seen in higher levels of play.

I have seen well executed mecanum robots with well trained drivers(836). The problem is that many teams that use mecanum aren't well developed teams and choose mecanum because of the cool factor but never get around to making the "cool" part work and if they do they rarely have time to learn how to drive it or develop other mechanisms on the robot to function at a high enough level. These teams that struggle with mecanum will continue to create subpar robots, although possibly slightly better, with or without mecanum.