Hello forum peoples, my team has a meet this Saturday, and we’ve decided that after the meet we’re going to completely rebuild the robot. We were originally going to rebuild so we could switch to mecanum wheels, but then we found out about X-Drives. I started building the chassis for it preemptively, but I wanted to know if it is worth it to have an X-Drive for Spin Up before we fully committed. I’ve heard mixed messages from other people in our org, some for and some against. (saying not enough torque, etc.) What is your opinion?
2 Likes
The main thing you need to think about is the pros and cons of an X-Drive. Do the pros like the ability to strafe and slightly higher speed outweigh the cons of being a weaker and the additionally complexity of building and programming an X-Drive? In order to weigh them, your team can figure out what the rest of you robot would look like and what your strategy would be with and without an X-Drive. What would you skills run look like? How much do you take advantage of strafing in skills and in head-to-head matches? How will you counter heavy defense? Does another drivetrain like mechanum, 4 motor tank, or 6 motor tank do any of this stuff better? As a bonus, this is all really good stuff to put in a notebook.
6 Likes
Aight. I think a notebook entry or two would be good for this. You bring up some great thinking points…
We built a x chassis and we love it! Torque is not an issue because we pushed our sister team (200 rpm tank drive). Plus the benefits are being able to strafe diagonally. You also go around 1.4 times faster than a mechanism wheels with the same rpm.
4 Likes
So, you’d say that an X-Drive is a good idea? if so, awesome. This is a great challenge and learning experience for my team. 
X drives can be very good, but if poorly built, they suck. I would not recommend building an x drive unless you already have sufficient experience. Also, I would not recommend mecanum as I find it’s strafing abilities inferior, and its slower strafing and wider wheels I don’t think are as valuable as connecting the motors on standard tank drive.
3 Likes
Just make sure you build it symmetrically. Our team didn’t and we had to rebuild the whole thing.
1 Like
have you used it in a meet before?
alright, ill take all this into account and talk to my team.
yea when I started building a bit of it I was using the old and new gussets and it screwed it all up
Yes, we have had it for about 2 months and the only problem we ever had was we deleted our entire code for it so we had to restart.
1 Like
Oh nice, good news for us then. Thanks for sharing!
1 Like
I do like x-drive conceptually, but I disagree that it is a good option for spin-up. The strafing is nice, but 6m drive is so achievable that I think 6m tank is so much more practical. And the strafing isn’t nearly as necessary in this game as it was in others. Nice yes, but not worth missing 6m drive for
2 Likes
With the recent q and a answer, I would say x drive are not practical. The benefits of them are easily outraged by the fact that they usually can’t drive over the barrier, but can be indefinitely pinned against it.
11 Likes
X Drive is not viable for winning tournaments in this game. You will always get beaten in roller play and easily pushed while shooting. Watch any match ever with an x drive and you will understand. X drives are cool for skills, but tank is still better.
4 Likes
The meta is shifting towards 6 motor drive train with 360rpm+. An x drive is going to make you way too slow.
An X drive is not too slow 3.23 inch wheels gives a decent speed and 4 inch wheels is pretty fast for 4m.
It’s is and isn’t. Its a good idea because of the movement that you get from it but you don’t have a lot of space for the discs to come in. My team did talk about this and derided against it because there are better alternatives.
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.