“I’m planning to build a mecanum drive for this new season because the field is so open, unlike a season like Pushback where there were many game elements to bump into. I also think this game will be less about speed and more about precision. Therefore, I considered a holonomic drive, such as a mecanum or an X-drive. I’m hesitant about X-drives due to their size, and I truly believe a mecanum drive is the perfect fit for this season. My questions are: what type of chassis are you planning to use, and do you think mecanum is a great choice for this season?”
Do you mean size and gearing?
Personally I think mechanum drive is not the best but it is viable. If you want to use it, I would recommend using the 4" wheels, 200rpm (green) motor cartridges, and a 24:36 gear ratio. This would give 300rpm, 63in/sec, okay pushing power with strafing (which is difficult). And if you do end up using this I would reveiw all of it and include reasoning showing understanding for your notebook.
what is the best drive for you?
i mean we have only 4" mecanums but I think they are the best ones. I’m not so sure about gearing tho. I just asked if mecanum is a great choice for this year
It’s what my teams is thinking of. 4’’ is probably the best option. We haven’t thought too much about gear ratio, but maybe thinking green motors powering 48t gears and the wheels on 60t gears. Not to much of a reduction.
Personally, I don’t think that holonomic drives are going to be as good as people say they will be. Even if you can strafe, you still need driver precision, but if you just put some aligners on your chassis, you don’t need that precision.
My team is just running a standard 6 wheel 2.75" omni-traction combo on blue carts and 48:60T
I don’t recommend gearing a 200 rpm cart down. Your ratio would result in a wheel rpm of 160, and only moving 33.5 in per sec at an optimal weight. For context, the lowest speed that is considered viable is 333 rpm on 3.25" wheels, and that is 56.7 in per sec. I would highly recommend reconsidering your speed, as any other robot will be able to drive circles around you, and the benefits of holonomic drive will be negated by just how slow it is.
what about blue motors
Yeah sorry I meant blue.
What about a asterisk drive, it is faster, stronger nd just better than x driven and mecanum? I think the only down side to it is that the hardness of building it.
Do you have any experience driving holonomic, or is tank drive already ingrained into your muscle memory?
One of my teams built a prototype 55W Mecanum base (200 RPM 11Ws with 36:24, 5.5W added to opposite corners). I think that they are going to revert to tank drive because the driver has 5 years of experience with it and wasn’t adjusting to holonomic well.
I have two graduating seniors who just added a “clawbot” tower and arm to an X-drive base we keep around. They love it… One has some tank drive experience and struggled a bit, but the non-driver adjusted very quickly.
You might want to include this variable learning curve in your evaluation process.
our driver has one year of experience and our chassis was a tank
What would your motor layout be?
55w tank, maybe don’t use mech wheels
Are you saying that there aren’t many game elements this year? Precision will be accounted for via aligners so speed will always be useful. The king of the hill style endgame does not suit mecanum drives because of the lack of traction. I would consider a tank drive, h drive, or asterisk drive instead.