Our team used a 6wd pneumatic drive train this year. We had a horrible time turning but when sideways we were practically unmovable.
I was wondering what other teams have had the best luck with in terms of traction and mobility. Thanks for any and all help/info
Many teams have great luck with similar conditions which you described. With your 6WD, did you happen to lower the center pair of wheels at all?
With your question, many teams have been having great success with the new vexpro versa wheels. Teams also have great success with colson wheels.
3284 from Camdenton, MO, and 2337 from Michigan were to the two best examples I have seen yet that offer both traction and turning.
3397 was more maneuverable than pushy, but we could push in a pinch.
We lowered our middle wheels like you’re supposed to in a 6wd WCD drivetrain but for some reason it didn’t help out much
If you insist on pneumatic tires, you must have (very) dropped center wheels to turn well at the wheel’s specified pressure.
How much was the drop? I saw you were going with pneumatic wheels this year, and, if the drop was not big enough, it could cause turning problems.
How much? Were all of your pneumatic tires also always fully inflated?
With Pneumatic wheels you might have to lower the center wheel more because the weight of the robot will cause your center wheel to squish (and lower the rest of the robot), thus eliminating some of the drop you added.
If you also were to deflate your outside wheels slightly, you should also notice a increase in mobility.
Edit: looks like the people above me came to the same conclusion
We realize our drop wasn’t big enough for the pneumatic wheels 
this will be fixed for off season
We tried playing with the air pressure but it never made a noticeable difference in maneuverability
Just so other teams don’t run into the same conclusion, what exactly was your drop? 1/8th? 3/16th?
I’ll measure tomorrow to be for sure but I believe it was about 3/16th of an inch
What off-season events are you going to? I would love to see you guys at some!
We are in the makings of hosting our very own off season event in August this year and would love to see you there!
very likely will be at cowtown also 
Awesome! We should be attending CTTD, and, if you get me info, Farmington is close enough to St. Louis that we could make our way down there fairly easily. PM me the details when you have them figured out, we would love to attend!
After using both AM plaction and vexpro traction wheels now, I’m confident in saying that I love the vexpro traction wheels. I don’t know what performance boost we would get from using the versa wheels over the Traction wheels with extra grip SBR black roughtop from McMaster, so I think we’ll be sticking with these champs.
I have heard a lot of good news about the vexpro products, and have been considering using both the vexpro ball shifter and the vexpro traction wheels
We had a lot of success with colsons this year. We were able to hold our own against teams running rough and wedge top. We did not even add grooves to our wheels. We are going to have to try a higher torque pushing gear with grooved colsons next year.
What size wheel did you use?
Over your 2 regionals this year, how much rubber wear did you experience? Do you have pictures of a new wheel vs your worn wheels now? Is there any different in diameter between the worn & new wheel ?
As for wheels, I still think Colsons are king. They’re incredibly easy to use with hubs from: West Coast Products. We use 4" wheels with our own tread cut into them.