After much trial and error we have our robot driving around close to how we would like it. We are implementing 3 or 4 modes of driving to be selected based on the task we are wanting to perform. This video shows what the students are calling the “Cardinal Drive”.
We tested our robot on the gear collection, climbing and ball intake, and are adjusting all three pieces. The panels on the gear collector are being modified since the gear fell out half the time and the belt on the climber started slipping so we are either going to direct drive the shaft or replace the belt with chain (probably try both). The zip ties on the ball intake are going to be screwed into the shaft so they don’t spin around the shaft and therefore hopefully bring the balls in little better.
There is a ball shooter attached that has not been tested yet, but that is not our focus at this point, so maybe we’ll get to it soon. :o
I can answer the third question: It looks like YouTube’s automatic video stabilizing. The camera was probably shaky, so they had YT stabilize the video for them.
We currently are running on 8 omni-wheels (2 on each side). We are possibly going to add another wheel to each side.
The “Cardinal Drive” takes which ever direction we want to go and rotates to the closest corner so that we are driving on a diagonal. This allows all 8 wheels to participate in the moving of the robot.
As someone else point out, we did use the video stabilizer from Youtube.
The gear collector in the only part I feel really comfortable with at this point. Climbing is not too far off. The shooter is far from being tested, especially since we don’t have a way to deliver the balls from the intake to the shooter yet.
Seems to be that driving at a 45 most of the time, would make the fuel pickup less effective. If picking up fuel becomes a priority, may want to program a mode where you running the collector facing the direction of travel. Looks pretty nimble, you are ahead of us this year.
