For a moment, I’d like you to consider a four wheel, four motor drive train. Said drive train has all omni-directional wheels. The drive can be chain driven so two motors and two wheels are all on the same loop (per side) or each motor can be dedicated to a wheel.
The question is thus…
Should one individually drive the wheels or chain together ALL THE THINGS?
Which would be more efficient? Which do you/ would you use? The poll is above, please post any comments or reasons for your input below.
EDIT: Jij made a good point, both is a viable option as well, though i neglected to put it in the poll. Feel free to post your reasoning in the thread!
He didn’t specify whether the motors are directly driving the shafts in either case. The only distinction specified between the two options is whether the wheels are chained together.
These utilizes a 3 4 5 triangle. 2 60 tooth meshed together is 5 holes long thus two gears set 3 and 4 holes apart horizontally and vertically respectively mesh perfectly.
This allows motors to never make contact with the bump for smoother monorailing.
I agree with jij. Direct motor input has higher gearing efficiency, but the addition of chain ensures that all motors are always working (e.g. robot does a wheelie). The only reason to use chain is if you need to power something from a distance, need space for another component, or need a gear ratio.
Yes I know, this is where I got a little bit confused So I decided to explain further in a reply
I’m pretty sure I saw a team at Worlds use gears like that, except they had a 6 wheel drive, so the gears were in a sort of ‘M’ shape. It looked really cool.
So I decided to explain further in a reply 
